A Lincoln County 9-year-old’s eight-legged cooking creation hascaptured national attention, but fell a little short of securingher a $25,000 scholarship to the college of her choice.

Emily Goss’s creative use of peanut butter did, however, captureher a $2,500 scholarship, a plaque recognizing her achievement anda trip to New York as a runner-up in the Jif Most Creative PeanutButter Sandwich Contest. She was one of four runners-up in thecontest.

The grand prize entry, a peanut butter chicken phillycheesesteak sandwich, was awarded to Jordyn Boyer ofPennsylvania.

Contest judges, though, were impressed by Goss’s “CreepyDelicious Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.”

“The judges said my creativity came very close to my love forbugs and critters,” Goss said. “They said it was pretty good and aclever idea.”

Her spider-like creation was a circular sandwich garnished withpretzel sticks, grapes and chocolate chips. It was complete witheight jointed legs, two big eyeballs and chocolaty, hairy back.

Goss said she was not disappointed in not being selectedfirst.

“I feel wonderful about it and it was fun getting to go to NewYork and have fun with my mom and dad,” she said.

Ken Goss, her father, said his daughter was actually “kind oftickled” she didn’t win because it gave her more time to see thesights of New York with her mother, Rita Goss, and cousins KristaLilly, Gena Thompson and Kayla King.

The contestants were kept busy before the event. They appearedon “The Today Show” the morning of March 19 and made the rounds ofNew York television stations March 20 before the judging.

“She was very excited about that,” Ken Goss said.

Emily Goss was released following the judging and spent theweekend visiting New York hot spots. Among the sights she visitedwere Times Square, Broadway, Ground Zero, the Statue of Liberty andthe Museum of Natural History in Central Park.

She immediately made the connection between the museum and oneof her favorite movies, “A Night at the Museum.”

“We had to go find everything that was in the movie,” Ken Gosssaid.

Emily Goss said she will continue to refine her culinary talentsand experiment with peanut butter.