To bee or not to bee, at any age
Adult spelling bee creates community as well as goofy entertainment
This post is part of a feature called Random Topic Tuesday, which explores other topics that might or might not be sports-related or sports-adjacent. Because they are, you know, random.
Chiaroscuro. Kee-ahr-oh-SCYUR-oh.
Sometimes, you recognize a winner moments before they actually win.
Language of origin?
It’s in the way they step up to what they need to do wearing a look of confidence that says nothing more than “I got this.” Maybe they take a breath first. Or dribble once. Or dig in their heels.
Or ask for a language of origin.
Italian.
Then they smile ever so slightly because they know what everybody else will know in a second or two:
They got this.
So it goes with a free throw, a field goal, a penalty kick or even a game of cribbage when you get dealt just the right hand.
And so it goes at a spelling bee. But not just any spelling bee — this is a spelling bee for adults who, just like at any bee for kids, can offer a look that ranges from “I got this” to “Oh man, I’m in trouble” to “What the heck did I get myself into?”
I get a close-up view of those looks because I’m the one giving out the words. Since 2012, I have been organizing and running a spelling bee for grown-ups in my hometown of Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, just west of Madison.
Last weekend, more than 200 people showed up at a cool event space in a former farm implement dealership to watch 25 brave contestants give it their best shot. They do so while standing in front of friends and neighbors, getting through words that start simply (“only”) and work their way up to insane (“thalassography”).
Anyone who has ever watched the national bee on TV knows the drama inherent in watching kids spell words you swear someone made up. But when it’s your friends and neighbors? Including some who might heckle you? Or contestants who crack jokes along the way? It’s incredible entertainment.
That I ended up running a spelling bee was a rather random event. I lived in my hometown at the time and was in my local coffee shop when I walked by a table of people discussing a potential winter festival. They thought a spelling bee at the recently restored one-room schoolhouse would be a good idea.
“Sure,” I said. “Let me know if you need any help.”
I said this because I was working for the Wisconsin State Journal, which sponsors both the Madison city bee and the state spelling bee. I knew I could ask someone there how to run a bee. Weeks later, within days of each other, two people told me, “Hey, I hear you’re running a spelling bee.” It was news to me, but I took the idea and ran with it.
I knew the bee would draw contestants; word nerds are everywhere. What I didn’t know was that it would be such a popular spectator sport. As perfect as the one-room schoolhouse was as a venue, we outgrew it and moved into an event space up the street that can hold far more people.
Contestants have been colorful from the get-go. In the first year, my sister-in-law entered and dressed as a bee. (She won.) Another contestant, after a few years of finishing as a runner-up, showed up in her wedding dress because she was tired of being a bridesmaid and hoped that maybe for once she’d be the bride. (She did not win.)
This year’s runner-up heard about the bee 5 minutes before it started, when he was shopping at a nearby store with his wife and hustled over to register. It was the first bee he’d entered since he won one in grade school – in 1964.
The crowd favorite of contestants, however, was a long-retired former one-room schoolteacher. She entered the bee at age 96 and again at age 97. She vowed to win before she turned 100 – and she was good. Sadly, she died before she could try again at age 98. Her name was Ellen, and we’ve named our trophy after her, “The Spellin’ Ellen.” Her daughter presents it to the winner each year.
We play by the same rules the kids use, with a few twists. Since most people haven’t been in a bee since well before they could vote, we have a practice round. This year’s practice round was to correctly spell the names of Wisconsin towns. (Go ahead, try Oconomowoc. Out loud.) We also sing the anthem before the bee, but it’s our own anthem: the ABC song, led by a local first-grade teacher.
The bee is part of a winter festival that has as its trademark the red hats of Scandinavian folk tales: nisse or tomte hats. So beyond the goofiness of adults standing like nervous children trying to spell, many are also doing so wearing a pointy red hat looking at a room full of people wearing pointy red hats. We kind of look like a cult, but this is a cult that enjoys weird entertainment. Like watching their neighbors spell.
This year, our winner was a repeat from last year. A super smart former firefighter named Terese clearly knows her art terms because she had no trouble with chiaroscuro (pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color). Along the way she also managed perihelion (the point nearest to the sun in the path of an orbiting celestial body) and legerdemain (sleight of hand).
Now that I’m living in Iowa again, I’ve been trying to persuade various friends in organizations here that they should do something like this. I usually get a look that says “Hmmm, maybe” that is not unlike the look a little kid gets when asking Mom and Dad for a dog and is politely dismissed.
Perhaps it’s my fault for not describing it well enough. Because the truth of the matter is when it comes to truly conveying how a bunch of wicked smart language geeks can bring a huge amount of joy to a whole town, well, there simply are no words.
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From A Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
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I love this post and this tradition, even though I remain emotionally scarred from a spelling bee incident from when I was a kid.
Thank you! You’ve given me an idea for some events around here that have gone a bit stale. May try this.