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HAY RIVER - A young Hay River student, a former vice-president of the United States and many others have something in common.

They all have had difficulty spelling potato - adding an "e" to the end of the word.

Caitlin Chambers, 11, added an "e" and it ended up hurting her chances to advance in Canada's Super Speller, a national competition being filmed by the CBC.

Caitlin was in Vancouver earlier this month for the contest's regional championships.

"I was really nervous but I was excited at the same time," Caitlin said.

During the first section of the competition, participants were asked to spell words until they got one wrong.

Caitlin correctly spelled 'creepy', but missed the next word, which was potato.

"I've spelt it before," she said, recalling that, during the contest, she was considering whether or not there was an "e" on the end of the word.

"After I got out, a lot of kids there told me they thought there was an 'e' at the end," she said.

In the following speed round, she correctly spelled 13 words in 40 seconds.

Her combined total of 14 words spelled correctly was not enough to win her a spot in the national round of the contest, set for October in Wolfville, N.S.

In 1992, then-U.S. vice-president Dan Quayle famously added an 'e' to potato when he corrected a student's spelling while visiting a school - all in front of television cameras.

Caitlin, a Grade 6 student at Princess Alexandra school, said she was happy to have made the regional championships but disappointed at not having moved further in the contest.

Her father, Jamie Chambers, said the competition will eventually be shown in a six-part series on CBC. The first episode will be about the early regional contests and Caitlin may appear on that show.

She was one of four students from the NWT, Yukon and Nunavut to appear at the regional championships.