Spelling Bee coordinator Kim Vesely summed up Thursday’s annual event best, calling it “probably the hardest test we’ve ever put our spellers in.”

The 16 contestants who went out on first-round words, and four more eliminated in the second round, would probably agree.

So, too, would Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Sue Cleveland, who summed up the 75-minute bee by telling the audience at Lincoln Middle School, “I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t get about half of those words.” Bryce Peever could.

The Eagle Ridge Middle School sixth-grader nailed “lapidary” to emerge as the champion, although runner-up Angelica Velez had him on the ropes twice.

Angelica, whose sister Gabriel, was also in the field n the sisters were Colinas del Norte’s top spellers n erred on the words “epiglottis” and “heliotropism.” Had she spelled either word correctly, she would have been the winner.

Then Bryce had an opportunity to win, after Angelica missed “inimically.” But Bryce couldn’t come up with “nephrectomy,” and the bee went on.

Both missed their words in the next round, before Angelica got “rotisserie” and Bryce correctly spelled “battalion.”

Then Angelica couldn’t come up with “abysmal;” Bryce knew how to spell “chenille,” paving the way for “lapidary.”

Barely taking a moment to ponder his choice of letters, he ripped it off and stuck it.

The son of Michael and Lisa Peever, Bryce said he’d worked with thousands of words during practice and had stayed up until 10 p.m. Wednesday evening.

It was his third consecutive year in the bee, after competing for Ernest Stapleton Elementary in 2006 and ’07.

Strangely, perhaps, since most spellers remember words they missed in the past, Bryce said he couldn’t recall what sent him out of last year’s competition. (The Observer could: It was “sedentary.”)

He had some advice for future bee participants: “Just relax and if you lose, just say, ‘Hey, there’s still next year.’”

He was prepared for that, he said, of Angelica had spelled her words correctly after his gaffes.

“I was just thinking, ‘Hey, if I become runner-up, that’s still good for me.’”

The victory sends him to the regional bee in Albuquerque later this winter. Angelica will be Rio Rancho’s representative if he can’t make it.

Here’s how the rest of the field of 26 n 13 boys and as many girls -- fared, with the round and the word each missed:

First round: Kyle Habetler (physique), Daniella Armijo (omnipotent), Nicholas Aragon (regatta), Zachariah Keliikuli (aristocracy), Joshua Bodewaldt (harpsichord), Arlan Bird (mantilla), Joshua Lucero (spherical), Larimar Rodriguez (libretto), Kevin Clark (sayonara), Shay Meredith (simile), Alyssa Courtney (obsequious), Frederick Earnest (chimichanga), Katrina Lucero (geranium), Sara Weber (filibuster), Kendra Duncan (persimmon) and Gabriel Gutierrez (ominous).

Compare those words with some of last year’s first-round words: waffle, cotton, denim and buffalo and it’s easy to see why only four spellers bit the dust in the first round in ’07.

Second round: Jessica Tipton (furlough), Cameron Vallejos (bureaucracy), Gabriela Velez (salmonella) and Alannah Alexander (melancholy).

Third round: Matthew Watkins (chisel).

Three of the remaining five were dispatched in the fifth round: Sierra Hieronymus (ergophobia), Shay Meredith (peripheral) and Marcello Della Site (trachea).

That left Bryce and Angelica to battle for what turned out to be 16 more rounds.

Bryce not only turned out to be the best speller in the district, which for the bee includes St. Thomas Aquinas School, but also blurted the line of the day.

Given the word “paraphernalia,” he came back at pronouncer Dr. Sue Passell with, “Can you spell impossible?”

She could, but she didn’t; he then misfired on his word, which had followed a misspelling of the word “isosceles” by Angelica.