Ashley Terry is on a whirlwind tour of the nation’s capital.

The Chronicle-Telegram’s spelling bee winner has been traveling around Washington, D.C., as part of the week of events centered around the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the finals for which will be televised Friday.

She and her mother, Marion Fitch, have been running from this event to that event — they’ve seen the White House, they’ve toured the U.S. Naval Academy, they’ve been out on a boat in some very brisk weather and they’ve found a cute little strip of shops where they’ve indulged in some retail therapy.

As for the spelling bee, itself?

Well, Ashley has taken the written test, the results of which she’ll find out today. That required her to spell out 50 words, 25 that are used in the bee, although the spellers don’t know which words they are.

Those results, paired with the results of an oral round today, help to whittle down the pool of 288 spellers.

So was the written test hard?

“Kind of,” the 13-year-old said. “Some of the words were. I don’t actually feel I did that well on it.”

She pauses and asks,  “Can you hold on a minute?”

A fellow speller wants her to sign a book, which is a tradition at the spelling bee. The book includes the speller’s picture and pertinent information. Ashley has collected about 90 signatures, she said.

Washington, D.C., is not exactly a new experience for Ashley. A few weeks ago, she traveled there with her school, Sailorway Middle School in Vermilion. But it’s still been a lot of fun, she said.

“I got to see the White House closer up than I got to see it the last time,” she said.

Fitch said it’s been neat seeing her daughter interact with children from across the country.

“There are so many people here,” she said. “All of the kids have really enjoyed the interaction more than anything else. And it’s been good for the parents, too, because we can just sit and watch them have fun.”

Contact Julie Wallace at 329-7157 or jwallace@chroniclet.com.

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