Dedicated Village Volunteers Win the Scarsdale Spelling Bee

I found out that I had a lot to learn at the Scarsdale Spelling Bee on Friday 2-26. I am an avid reader and spend my days writing, so I assumed that I was a better than average speller. But it turned out that I was flattering myself. Sitting in the audience at the Sixth Annual Friends of the Library Spelling Bee I realized that the problem wasn't just my spelling; I didn't even know what many of the words meant. Who knew that a D-H-O-W was a sailboat, that L-Y-S-I-S refers to the breaking down of a cell membrane and that A-F-F-L-A-T-U-S isn't intestinal gas -- but divine inspiration!

After I realized what a tough contest this was, I was doubly pleased that I had not given into temptation and volunteered to be a contestant when the organizers asked for a few more volunteers. That would have been embarrassing.

Luckily many brave souls did agree to participate, but most were not on stage long. The contest began with four "swarms" of five teams each, but since one misspelling knocked you out, the rounds were over quickly. The contest was judged by State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, Scarsdale Mayor Jon Mark and Library Director Elizabeth Bermel –--who had to quickly look up the correct spelling of each word while the contestants worked.

The event is usually emceed by the voice of the Mets, Ed Coleman. But since the spelling bee was postponed due to snow, Ed is at spring training and was not available. Stepping in for Ed was last year's spelling bee winner and Library Board President Terri Simon.

In Swarm A, one team was knocked out with the first word, when they left the first H out of the word E-I-G-H-T-H. The remaining four teams all spelled Counsel, Vigilante, Eczema, Innuendo and Complementary correctly, but two groups fell with D-H-O-W, the last misspelled C-O-I-R, leaving the Bee Bee Kings, including Chris Morin, Seth Ross and Sunil Subbakrishna as the swarm victors.

In Swarm B, two teams were knocked out with the word Humerus – which refers to the large bone of the upper arm -– not the class comedian. The remaining three teams all misspelled Afflatus so they all stayed in the context. Jodphur tripped up one team and Embouchure another, putting the Library Trust Bees – Marc Greenwald, John Harris and Frank Lichtenberg into the final round.

Swarm C was short-lived. All five team misspelled Googol – which is 10 to the 100th power – not the popular search engine. Another lost on Zori and three teams faltered on the word Muumuu. I remembered owning one when I was about four – but the spelling of it evaded me too. The Pres-Bee-Terians, Heather and Stephan Meili, won that swarm and were finalists as they have been many times before.

In the last round, which was intended for high school students, the Friends had trouble getting volunteers. However they did manage to get three teams to volunteer from the audience. This round was the quickest of all. It started with B-I-E-R – which is a stand for a corpse rather than a drink you'll find on tap. Three teams were knocked out on the first word. Next came A-B-H-O-R-R-E-N-T. One of the teams neglected the double "R", putting Josie and Louisa Blatt and Laura Clapp into the finals.

After a break for snacks and a trivia contest, the four teams returned to stage for the final round. Though the teams could use white eraser boards to write their words for the initial rounds, for this final stage it was an oral contest with each team given a word to stand up and spell. One team was knocked out quickly by the word Quiddity, another inserted the letter A instead of Y in Anaphylactic. That left the teens sparring against the Bee Bee Kings. It was very impressive for the teens to spell I-S-O-S-C-E-L-E-S correctly but ultimately they were flummoxed by the word T-E-S-S-E-L-L-A-T-E – which they spelled with a C rather than the double S.

The winners emerged. They included School Board member Chris Morin, past School Board member Sunil Subbakrishna and current candidate for Village Trustee Seth Ross, who scored a repeat victory. You can draw your own conclusions about what this says about the non-partisan system!

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There were gifts for the contestants, prizes for the winners and lots of great raffle give-aways for the attendees. The event was well-attended – especially by kids, and it was a good time for all.

Photo Credit © Nadide Goksun