Once again, on November 16, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was the scene of  the 2010  Celebrity Spelling Bee. Participating VIP contenders from the community (all good sports for a good cause) included two local mayors, the First Lady (or wife of the mayor) of Murfreesboro, “Albert Einstein,” a prominent Baptist pastor and writer, a reporter-photographer from WSMV (Channel 4), the vice president of WGNS Talk Radio, last year’s Miss Black Tennessee titlist, and the plant manager for the local General Mills facility.

The bee – this was the fourth annual orthographic set-to, for individuals rather than teams, to benefit Read to Succeed, the community collaborative whose many ongoing good works and activities include both adult and family literacy programs – drew an audience of some 250 spirited onlookers and raised almost $38,000, according to RTS Executive Director Ronni Shaw. Among contestants, Rutherford County Commissioner Joyce Ealy collared the most sponsors and active community volunteer Gloria LaRoche earned the cause the most money.

But top spelling honors went to Commissioner of Tennessee Department of Corrections Gayle Ray, who by the rules had to spell an additional word correctly to secure first prize (or else the last four people eliminated would be back to continue competing). Gayle did so successfully: the extra word was chimichanga. Initial bee words were gentle on those vying, but thereafter words got tougher, and it took not much more than an hour before Gayle was standing alone.

No surprise: the Williamsburg Spelling Bee has again drawn ink and pixels in the New York Times, this time in the August 17 “Nocturnalist” blog of Sarah Maslin Nir, who was present the night before for the opening of the Brooklyn bar bee’s twelfth season at Pete’s Candy Store.  

“Spellcheck isn’t necessary for me,” one Williamsburg contestant commented to Ms. Nir, who added, “But Noam seemed the exception in a generation dependent on technological spelling crutches.” As Nir notes, many spectators who seemed familiar with the words confronting entrants at the bee were not so familiar with their meanings and “turned to iPhones and hastily Googled definitions.” The winner this evening happened to be a pianist named William Southerland, who twenty years earlier had competed in the non-adult National Spelling Bee. 

If you’re one of those admitting to being overly reliant on orthographic orthopedics, and want to stand up and be counted as a self-respecting adult speller, come to Williamsburg. The next bee is August 30. But get there by 7 pm. The first 18 people get to play, as co-host Jennifer Dziura puts it.

See also our blog entry for March 31, 2010.

An adult bee event coming up in Santa Monica, California, will be iniquitously inequitable in not only allowing but enthusiastically encouraging cheating – but all in a jocular vein.

It will be an elimination bee. The words will be tough enough -- succedaneum, staphylococci, and smaragdine are among examples in a provocative ad for the bee, which also warns, “You’ll definitely be embarrassed to wipe out on daiquiri.” And yet being a great speller might not matter at all. How’s that?

It’s The Spelling Bee for Cheaters, in which generous sponsors or checkbooks are likely to get a team further than spelling prowess or an extensive working vocabulary.  Hosted by 826LA and the organizers of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Spelling Bee for Cheaters will be a kind of over-the-top unfair verbal-fare fair or rigged and wide-open bribe-fest.

Or call it a charity with temerity, no parity, hilarity, and celebrity. This “tournament of verbal smarts and fraudulence” is a highly ambitious fund-raiser for 826LA, the Los Angeles branch of the organization that provides free writing, tutoring, and workshop programs in several American cities for students between the ages of six and eighteen. And as Santa Monica is not far from Hollywood, a number of well-known actors, directors, etc., are scheduled to be present – and to have a go as spellers -- including Spike Jonze, Catherine Keener, Judd Apatow, John Krasinski, and Dianna Agron.

In this merrily unorthodox bee, for a team’s efforts to pay off, big, big and bigger pay-offs (but pledged beforehand – there’s a deadline for them!) will definitely and outrageously help. But no one will bat an eye.

A maximum of 50 teams will square off. Each must have two or more members, but only one person will be permitted on stage to spell the words – or not to. Among the teams so far throwing down the gauntlet are The Super Mighty Word Ninjas, The Tori Spellings, The Dictionators, and MC Grammar.

At least eleven types and degrees of  “cheats” can be pre-purchased by supporters for their teams, who can thus – given a tough word to spell -- use them to get out of trouble.  The prices for specific cheats range from $100 to $25,000, and they include helpful hints (about the correct spelling), cop-outs (permitting one to “pass” on a word), and second chances (after being eliminated). For example, a $250 cheat will allow the lone speller or team rep to consult with his or her teammates; $500 gets one a new, different word to spell; $750 is good for a look inside a dictionary; and $6,000 allows an eliminated misspeller back in the game.

Never mind that all this openly devious cheat-your-way-to-the-top tomfoolery will go down at a Santa Monica edifice named for an American president and paragon of virtue, Lincoln Middle School.

This all sounds to us like lots of fun. And despite the bee’s naughty name and totally shifty (but nifty) money-raising devices, who’s to say the winners of the bee couldn’t by some miracle be, well, just very good spellers?

If you’d don’t want to compete on a team in A Spelling Bee for Cheaters but would enjoy watching all the mischief, general admission tickets are $25. They’ll be released “based on availability” August 6.

1.
What makes a bee different from – or more zany than -- other bees? (Discuss amongst yourselves.) 

“UNLIKE ANY OTHER. unique ruls for spelrs and non-spelors, this bee is about fun, ‘humor interruptions,’ and the unexpected!” (These words of welcome or warning appear right on the bee registration form.) 

Ventura, California, plays host to a merrily unorthodox and quite bamboozling adult bee. The words themselves are not as hard as those in many other adult bees, and participants can presumably handle “humor interruptions” without losing their orthographic cool. But that’s only half the story. Can there really be a bee in which nutty rules go with every word to be spelled -- and in which the correct answers are not the correct spellings?  

In Ventura’s 3rd Annual Adult Spelling Bee – benefiting the Segue Career Path Mentors program – which took place June 1 at the Wedgewood Banquet Center – none of a team’s  answers could be ventured until the Ventura rules were given. Rules? More like devilish but enforced modifications or maladjustments.

For example, a word is given to your team. Now, team –don’t answer yet -- switch the order of the word’s first and second syllables. Then switch that of the third and fourth syllables… oh – and then spell your arrived-at  second and fourth syllables -- backwards. (Just those syllables and not the whole word? And that’s just Rule 12.) The evening also included the usual byplay with the emcee, the annual paper plate dance, and a special performance by the  Buzzy Boosters (a group of Ventura High School music boosters) of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

Nine teams competed. This year’s winner was Team Allison (a family unit plus a few friends), with second place going to the team called In-De-Tax, a squad of spellers from the county Tax Assessors Office.
info: www.segueprogram.org 

2.
In Prince Frederick, Maryland, the 14th Annual Bee for Literacy was held May 7, following a silent auction and vocals by jazz singer Joyce Kinser. The sponsor of the bee was PNC Bank and proceeds went to the Calvert County Literacy Council.

Among the more formidable entrants competing was the champion team of both the 2008 and 2009 bees, the BEE-attitudes. Would orthographic smarts, bee experience, and a bit of luck bless the BEE-attitudes again and make 2010 a threepeat (a word reportedly coined more than a decade ago by onetime NBA coach Pat Riley -- we admit to not being sure of its lexical legitimacy or spelling)? 

No threepeat this year. The winning  team was the Letterheads, who were sponsored by Second Look Books. Serving as spelling judges were a reporter (from the Calvert Independent) and a social studies department chairman, but the bee’s timekeeper was a real (district court) judge.
info: calvertliteracy@somd.lib.md.us; 410-535-3233

3.
How about a bee in Gainesville, Georgia, in which a competing team may ask the host to repeat the word in a French or Australian accent? (Do studies indicate that this can help one’s spelling?) 

First staged in 1992, Brenau University’s 18th Annual Spelling Bee drew both town and gown spectators to Pearce Auditorium on the Gainesville campus April 27 for a perennially combative but antic evening, all for the benefit of the Alliance for Literacy. As an ardent fan said before the 2009 bee, “It is a fast-paced event, with exciting skits and jokes, as well as some serious competition among teams.”  

Although no faculty contingent was among the contenders in the 2010 bee (a professorial team of yore was the only B.U.-associated entrant to take home a first-place trophy), there was a team made up of undergraduates. 

A faculty presence was nevertheless there, both behind the scenes and in front. The coach of the Brenau U. student team was a prof from the English department, and the emcee was (again) Gay Hammond of the drama department, known locally for her many voices and vocal effects in children’s theater productions.
info: www.allianceforliteracy.org; all4lit@bellsouth.net 

4.
Nowadays, there’s not only a boom in adult bees across our great country. There’s also at least one official boomer bee, which recently made its debut in Arcata, California. 

What’s more, the Arcata bee could also be called an especially entertaining bee within a bee.

On April 24 the Humboldt County Boomer Bee was inaugurated at the CR Forum Theater. This is a bee not for teams but for individual competitors, and those entering must be at least fifty years old. Fifteen contenders were present for the First Annual HCBB -- these finalists had to survive a written test taken a week earlier. 

The HCBB sponsor was the Humboldt Light Opera Company, for which the bee was a fundraiser – and a sound investment:  the money raised was for new audio equipment. 

A bee within a bee? Indeed. For those onstage and off, this was a two for one affair: presenting not only a bona fide spelling competition but a fictional one – a former hit Broadway show about a school bee that continues to take the country by storm in countless amateur and road company productions. Which musical? “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” of course. The latter was this year’s HLOC spring production, and it was performed here as part of the evening’s festivities.
info: thesecondhalf@suddenlink.net; 707-445-4310 

5.
In State College, Pennsylvania, the Foxdale Village Retirement Community was the setting April 14 for the 12th Annual Mid-State Literacy Spelling Bee. But there were people of all ages participating or watching the proceedings.

Penn State’s homecoming king and queen were special guests, and at intermission None of the Above, a campus a cappella group, provided a musical break from the evening’s main focus – a spelling bee for a good cause, in this case, the Mid-State Literacy Council, which serves adults in both Clearfield and Centry counties.

In all, twelve teams spelled their way (or, less successfully, their part-way) through round after round. The victors were the Spell Binders, a trio of former Penn State professors, who clinched the prize by spelling ytterbium.
info: mslc@mid-stateliteracycouncil.org 

6.
Spell Rite Night in Melfa, Virginia, is notable for not having the word bee in its title, and also (we think) for this year’s clever team names, which seemed worthy of prizes in themselves.

More than 120 people attended the annual adult bee at the Eastern Shore Yacht and Country Club. The evening’s verbal suspense and entertainment (along with a silent auction) brought in more than $5,600 to benefit the Eastern Shore Literacy Council.

Seven teams vied for the top prize, and they included the defending champs, the Tutor Dynasty.  Unfortunately for the Tutors, there was a doctor in the house -- or three of them making up a team called The Hippocratic Oafs (specializing in orthographi-pedics). The trio of MD’s proved anything but oafish, besting the Tutors to win first prize. The other bee contenders were the Rite Reverends, The Soroptimists, The Bear and Cubs, The Book Bin Barristas, and The Gulls and Buoys.
info: eslc1@bellsouth.net

At the climax of last year’s AARP national adult bee finals, Scott Firebaugh misspelled etui and had to settle for being runner-up.

No settling this year at the 15th Annual AARP National Spelling Bee. Scott, 56, a high school math and physics teacher from Knoxville, Tennessee, was back in Cheyenne to compete against 47 other spellers (one of whom was 86) from 18 states. His opponents included two former AARP bee champions (for the first time this year, past winners were permitted to compete again). It took all told nine and a half hours (which began with a 100-word written test) before Scott’s sole remaining rival and a first-time entrant, Robert Moy, went down on the word myoinsitol. It only remained for Scott to spell keratomileusis (a form of corrective corneal surgery). Piece of cake.

In his remarks after winning, Scott noted that luck favors those who are prepared. His preparations over the past year included reviewing a list of more than 8,000 unfamiliar words from Webster’s Third, drilling sometimes for eight hours daily (with his youngest daughter as pronouncer), and during daily three-mile runs carrying word notes with him to glance at (or to jog his memory?).

Scott was bitten by the spelling bug way back in third grade but only got wind of the big AARP adult bee five years ago. As a middle schooler he competed in what is today the Scripps National Spelling Bee and finished 16th.--D.G.

The winner was Anamika Veeramani, a fourteen-year-old eighth-grader from North Royalton, Ohio (she tied for fifth in the 2009 bee). Anamika smiled but momentarily looked a bit stunned – or maybe word-weary?

Or quietly relieved? At the end there was almost -- by the bee's rules --a return to action of Anamika's last four exited competitors, for them a second chance. To avert this “dis-elimination” (our word) of her rivals, Anamika had to correctly spell two words and did. The championship trophy clincher was the word stromuhr, which is a medical blood-flow measuring device.

To us at least, the culminating words in the 2010 finals seemed especially hard. Of course, they always are! When brave Scripps finalists get their word wrong, it’s often (these are the heartbreaker "close" dramas) only a single mischosen letter that dooms them. This year, in the case of six of the final seven words incorrectly spelled (by six contestants, that is), the misspellers had two or three letters wrong, too many, lacking, or misplaced. Hard words for sure.

How would you have done, toward the end of the 2010 SNSB, at spelling those same words?

Here (from Rounds 5 through 8) are the final 32 words that were missed by Anamika's competitors, arranged in groups of four.

Eight of them – one in each line -- are not correct. Can you nail them -- identify the wrong ones? And give the proper spellings? (These misspellings are not those of the contestants.)

1.  pholiocellosis   trompillo   caprifig   Bayesian 

2.  lorimer   fazenda   ictericious   dysautonomia 

3.  lassi   parivein   Aufgabe   hyleg 

4.  sifleur   meperidine   favilla   nephrocytary 

5.  jehu   phenazocine   chistkka   poilu 

6.  Guarnerius   appogalacteum   presa   gyokuro 

7.  engysseismology   confiserie   leishmanic   tailure 

8.  aguinaldo   terribilita   rhytidome   ochidor

The answers will be posted in a few days.

Here’s a briefer blog nod to other competitive spelling events that recently took place across the country.

No question about it – it just can’t be gainsaid: Adult bees began to burgeon all over the U.S. in the past decade. (A phenomenon we took note of a few years ago, and the main reason we put together our book, So You Think You Can Spell?.) And new "grown-up" bees, whether modest or major, continue to make their first buzz in cities and towns from coast to coast.

All six bees mentioned below are team-only competitions and target their proceeds to either a literacy organization or (in one case) public schools.

If you see one or two bees here that you wished you hadn’t missed attending or competing in, cheer up and remember: They’re annual events. For next year’s bee, save the date!

1.
For a bee in Denver, team backers included a local city government (that of Lakewood), local radio TV stations, and a Denver magazine. But the presenting sponsor for the 3rd Annual Tattered Cover Downtown Spelling Bee was The Tattered Cover, one of the city’s best-known bookstores. The 2010 bee was held May 14 during lunch hour in Skyline Park. Proceeds went to The Learning Source’s literacy programs.

Names of the sponsored teams included PF Chang’s – Hot Sake, Beds n’ Biscuits, and Killer Bees, but the winning team’s name was, in full – surely a verbal mouthful if not a hard sesquipedalian spelling term in itself --  CBS4-CSI: Denver, Competitive Spelling Implementation Unit. Runner-up was the Community College of Aurora team, and third place went to the City of Lakewood team.
info: www.coloradoliteracy.org  

2.
Alaska has its spelling bee culture, too. The Literacy Council’s 19th Annual Corporate Spelling Bee was held in Kitsap on May 6 at the Silverdale Beach Hotel and raised almost $16,000. Besides contributions from each team’s sponsor, there was also a silent auction.

Thirteen teams were in the running. In the 20th round the BEEtniks dropped out on misspelling Sagittarius. After a tense back and forth over a total of 42 rounds, the last two teams called a truce – and a tie -- to conclude the evening. They were thus co-champions: the Cedar Covettes (who won last year’s bee) and the BEEutiful Babes of Bras for a Cause.
info: www.kitsapliteracy.org  

3.
In Jacksonville, Texas, the 16th Annual Bee for Literacy raised funds for the Jacksonville Literacy Council. It was held May 5, and the result was that Team ETMC was aptitudinally repetitious, winning for the second year in a row. 

And how close, suspenseful, and late-running this year’s Jacksonville competition was, as all teams made it through the first seven rounds. (The first team to be knocked out exited the stage after 1 pm, roughly when the J.L.C. organizers had expected the bee to end.)
info: www.jlc-tx.org  

 4.
For the benefit of the Literacy Coalition of Central Texas, the 7th Annual Great Grown-Up Spelling Bee took place April 29 at the Austin Music Hall. 

Nineteen teams competed. These included three lucky, finals-eligible survivors from numerous Happy Hour (or Satellite) team bees held around town earlier. The three teams who emerged from these preliminaries to make it to the big show were the Spelling Aces, Spell My Briefs, and Taking Charge. There were some 500 spectators, and the Spelling Demons team bettered their main rivals, the Church Ladies.
info: mpoag@willread.com   

5.
The Loudoun Literacy Council’s 4th Annual Corporate Spelling Bee, April 26 at Lightfoot Restaurant in Leesburg, Virginia, had gift bags for sponsors and prizes for the victorious spellers and raised more than $20,000 for the cause of literacy. The winner of the bee was the Hartrex Management Corporation team.
info: www.loudounliteracy.org  

6.
In Newburyport, Massachusetts, in mid-April the NEF (Newburyport Education Foundation) 6th Annual Spelling Bee attracted 27 teams and raised more than $26,000 for the town’s public schools. The team champs were Just Us Chickens and the best costume award went to the threesome called the Spell Checkers.
info: www.newburyportef.org 

Asheville is the site for one of the longest-running (and here's a good spelling word) eleemosynary adult bees in the country -- that being the one organized by and benefiting the Literacy Council of Buncombe County (as well as Manna Food Bank).

The upcoming 20th Annual Spelling Bee of the LCBC already has its competing team slots filled. The 15 teams (three on a team) are sponsored by local businesses, colleges, community groups, nonprofits, book clubs, and generous individual supporters. And adult spelling teams beware! This year the organizers have invited a team of middle schoolers to compete (this past March they won the Asheville Area Middle School Bee). There will be more than a little interest in how this threesome of younger entrants will do against the grown-ups. 

At this year's spring showdown on May 27, the contending teams won't have all the fun. Audience members, once the bee is under way, can root for their favorites. But they can instead or also let their money do some talking.

During the bee, spectators will have the opportunity to drop contributions into a "Spirit Box," the one assigned to their favorite team. All Spirit Box cash will go to Manna Food Bank for community needs. The team whose box ends up having the most in donations will be awarded a special Spirit prize.

Audience members must pay $5 at the door or contribute its equivalent in non-perishable food items. But there are audience rewards -- door prizes to be won. The door prizes may include anything from a restaurant gift certificate to a hand-knit sweater.

As for the spellers, besides achieving orthographic bragging rights, each member of the winning team will be given signed copies of three books and a gift certificate to a local Asheville restaurant.

Among the locally celebrated team members this year will be Dr. Hank Dunn, the president of AB-Tech, and John Boyle, a reporter for the Asheville Citizen-Times.

The 8th annual Austin Chronicle Adult Spelling Bee is only days away (all entrance fees go to the Austin Public Library’s audio book collection at the Fault Central Library). To enter, one must be at least 21. Partners in the event are the bookstore Book People and Threadgill’s World Headquarters (“American Food and Music Southern Style”), where the bee is taking place.

Last year nearly 200 people participated, and an additional 100 to 150 were there just to watch and make themselves heard. Adult competitive spelling may not be officially considered an outdoor sport, but the Austin bee is an airy alfresco affair, held in the deck/patio and lawn area of Threadgill's eatery.

Austin’s pre-bee qualifying rounds consist of a written spelling test, from which only the top fifty move on -- to a second test. Only those whose scores pass muster on this one get to be official contestants. 

It was the brainchild of Bobby Blue and Jennifer Dziura, cool and comic co-masters of verbal ceremony of the Williamsburg bee (and emcees of more than a hundred adult bees and still counting). And happily and not surprisingly, Bobby and Jenn also preside as co-hosts of the latter. They have even composed a bee theme song, and sometimes perform it.

The venue for the NYC bee is the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in Soho, downtown Manhattan. With white walls, tall windows, a balcony, and some track lighting, the café is a homey, book-filled setting for things broadly literary -- or rigorously, strictly, orthographically correct.

The NYC Spelling Bee showdowns are quarterly events. Some contestants sport -- informally -- whimsical getups while spelling, including two recent contenders who were dressed as a misplaced modifier and a serial comma. Prizes have included dictionaries published by Oxford University Press.

Staffed mostly by volunteers, Housing Works presents, besides the bee, a busy calendar of varied events, including music, comedy, literary panels, and readings as well as publishing parties. Proceeds from all such activities and book sales fund the fight against HIV/AIDS and homelessness in the Big Apple (and in Haiti as well), with the money raised going toward housing, job training, health care, and advocacy for those in need. Book donations accepted.

Oh -- and though the HWBC is bookish and not a bar, it is a cafe. Beer is always on hand.

Details: First prize -- $500 and a plaque. The bee is part of a weekend of activities, beginning Friday with a half-day workshop: "Grey Matters: Training the Grownup Brain." Among the workshop panelists will be author and New York Times Health Editor Barbara Strauch. An opening reception at the hotel will include a just-for-fun warm-up spelling exercise. The bee takes place Saturday afternoon and begins with a round of written tests. Spectators are welcome.