First Annual Spelling Bee

This has been my second free weekend of the semester. No track meets to go to since we didn't qualify anyone for the national indoor meet. So that left me with more time on my hands than I'm used to, looking for something to do. So what did I do? I participated in the first annual Luther College Spelling Bee!

There have been notices around campus for the past two weeks that this spelling bee would be taking place and that the top three competitors would win money: $50, $100, and $150. From the very first time I saw that there was going to be a spelling bee I wanted to do it. The number of participants was limited to the first 50 people to sign up. So I knew I better get on top of it before 50 people signed up before I did. I mentioned it to some of my friends and all of them made the same claim that they were the worst spellers ever, leaving me to go it alone if I really wanted to do it.

It turned out that only 36 people showed up to participate, and most of them had been peer-pressured by their friends. It was a lot of fun. I had been in a couple of spelling bees in elementary school, and that along with the fact that I read a lot and do cross word puzzles left me pretty confident with my ability to spell. But in the back of my mind I had pictures of the Scripps National Spelling Bee that is on ESPN every year, with those ridiculously smart kids who study the dictionary and proceed to make everyone watching feel dumb. I was hoping that the words we were given would start off easy enough to leave a little bit of my confidence in tact.

I was number 23 (yes we had official numbers pinned to our shirts) and witnessed quite a few people get out in the first round before it was my turn. "Your word is 'acupuncture'" I was told as I went up to the microphone, which of course is always too tall for me to reach. Whew, only 'acupuncture'! I was thrilled that I didn't get something like "helioseismography" which came up a few rounds later. But as I was spelling, somehow my brain forgot to tell my mouth to say that second 'c' in there, so after all that confidence I was buzzed out. In the first round. Ouch.

Being the competitive person that I am, I was not happy, especially since I know how to spell that word! Oh well, there's no way I would've won as the words got much more difficult as the number of contestants dwindled. There's always next year. And next time, I'll be R-E-A-D-Y!