I’ve participated in one spelling bee in my life. It was in fourth grade. I studied for weeks, confident I was the best speller in my school. Then I spelled “biscuit” wrong in the written portion, and was out. I cried in the bathroom.
The next spelling bee I went to was more than a decade later. In my early days as a reporter, I covered county bees, then district bees, then the state spelling bee. I was quickly hooked.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee airs on ESPN each year, and it has all the drama and storylines of any sporting event.
It’s hard to watch a spelling bee dispassionately. The kids are onstage detectives, spelling complicated words they may have never heard before. They suss out the root and get clues from the part of speech, solving language mysteries through etymology.
Their personalities come through in their two minutes at the microphone. Some close their eyes to spell, others tap a rhythm on their legs, and still more write in the air with their fingers.
The first year after I covered the state bee, I invited friends over to watch the national competition on TV. We rooted for each kid to get their word right. We gasped when they didn’t. We cheered when they did. We ate letter-shaped cookies and challenged each other to spell the competition words before they made it on the screen. We were usually wrong.
I’ve held spelling bee parties every year since. I no longer cover the bees, but my friends and family know of my predilection. So when Scripps National Spelling Bee director Paige Kimble spoke to my sister’s college class two years ago, my sister shot me a text message: Did I have any questions for her?
OMG, I replied. Three minutes later, my phone rang.
Kimble (who was the 1981 champion of the national bee) graciously answered my questions about her favorite word (Ouaniche, a type of salmon) and the bee’s popularity internationally (it’s increasing). Our short conversation led to us meeting months later, when she had an airport layover in Atlanta.
That led to an invitation to attend last year’s bee. And, suddenly, instead of watching from my couch, I was looking agape at the big stage and bright lights.
Imagine standing at home plate in Turner Field, or walking into the orchestra pit at the Fox Theatre. I manned the @ScrippsBee Twitter feed last year, giving the play-by-play as spellers knocked out words like saccharolytic and chionablepsia. My fingers could barely keep up. The ballroom buzzed with excitement as parents swarmed the stage taking pictures. Offstage, spellers traded autographs. They laughed and joked and danced.
I’ll be back at the bee this year, blogging at http://spellingbee.com/bee-blog.
By the way, I’ll be using spell-check there. I do that whenever I invite friends to brunch at Flying Biscuit, too.
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