A Day at the Bee

Back in December, Maddie won her middle school spelling bee by correctly spelling “dichromatism”.  I don’t know who was more excited…Maddie or me.  I believe I may have mentioned my love of the spelling bee here before.  Winning the bee earned her a chance to compete in the Central Pennsylvania Spelling Bee, which was the step before the National Spelling Bee in Washington DC! 

However, she was not guaranteed a spot in the Central PA bee.  First she needed to pass a written test.  She and the other 144 students who won their school bees took a 100 word spelling test together at the end of January.  The top 36 scorers would earn a seat at the bee.  After an excruciatingly long week of waiting, we got the word that Maddie had made it! 

Now our study time kicked into high gear.  She studied anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes each day.  Some days when her homework load was heavy and she had swim practice, we didn’t get to it at all, but most days she and I studied hard together. 

Finally the big day arrived.  On Saturday, Grandma H. arrived to watch the boys, and Maddie, Dave and I set out for the PBS television studio in Harrisburg.  She did a little last minute studying in the car:

When we got to the studio, we checked in, then had about 15 minutes to kill before they would separate us.  She was in a good mood.  Nervous, but excited.  She even posed with Henry the 8th.

                                                       It’s like they were separated at birth!

We checked out the bios of the competition in the program.  There were 12 boys and 22 girls; seven 6th graders, three 7th graders, and twenty-four 8th graders; 13 spellers were returning from a previous year at the Central PA Bee.  None of them had a guinea pig or were as cute as Maddie (blog author admits to personal bias here).

                                                                                           Ready!

Finally, it was time for the spellers to head off for instructions, and for the parents to take their seats in the studio.    We hugged and kissed and wished her luck, and watched her walk away.  I felt sick to my stomach, but also felt so darn excited for her.

Soon they ushered the kids into the studio.   Here was our view:

That’s right.  The main cameraman was right in front of us.  I couldn’t see her when she was seated or when she was spelling, although Dave could see her when she was spelling.  Luckily there were two tv’s set up so I could see her on the monitors when it was her turn. 

There was also a last minute drama, as one of the spellers hadn’t yet arrived by taping time.  There were a few moments of waiting and deliberation. Finally, they began the “practice round”.  The words in this round were just for practice, they wouldn’t count against the speller if they got their word wrong.  Luckily, none of them did!  The late speller never showed, and the bee began.

Maddie was randomly given the number 13.  Finally, she got her first real turn and her first word, which was “knapsack”. 

                                                                                    She nailed it!

Then she spelled credentials, chronic, and incorruptible.

After round 4 the spellers were given a break, and we could join her.  The adrenaline was pumping, let me tell you!  Turkey Hill and Hershey were two of the bee sponsors so there was an awesome spread of drinks, ice cream, chips and chocolate. 

After twenty minutes, she headed back to the room with a smaller number of spellers than last time, maybe about ten fewer, and the words started getting harder.  Maddie knocked these words out of the ballpark in rounds 5-12:  opossum, terrapin, rapport, mihrab, charpoy, rejoneador. and nurturance.  There was one more word, and we can’t remember it!

But then…in round 13, she got the word pullet.  They defined it as a chicken and used it in a sentence for her.  I could see she didn’t know it.  She asked them for the language of origin and was told it was French. She told me later that she thought of “poultry” and decided to go with “poulet”.  I told her that was excellent thinking and I really meant it.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right spelling, the bell dinged, and Maddie was led out of the room by a “comfort person”.  Dave and I headed out too.  I knew she didn’t really need a “comfort person”, but I also knew she’d be crushed.

When we were reunited moments later, she was sad.  She knew all of the words in the round leading up to hers.  But that’s the way a spelling bee is. Sometimes you just get a word that is not a good fit for you!

We told her she was awesome.  We told her we were so proud of her.  I told her I would have gotten “opossum” wrong (I would have spelled it with two p’s), we told her that she had two more years to try again. But she was really, really sad.

                                Don’t worry…she made that sad face for me for artistic purposes. 

Then we helped ourselves to more Hershey/Turkey Hill products.  I still have some big Reese’s Cups in my purse for her!

She ended up finishing in 12th place, which she was really bummed about, because she missed the top 10 by two, and the kids in the top ten got a lot of prizes.  She ended up with a pair of bumblebee socks and free tickets to the Science Museum in Harrisburg and the Civil War Museum in Gettysburg.  Mostly, though, she didn’t care about the prizes, she just couldn’t believe she had been eliminated.

I wanted her to call people and tell them the good news of her excellent placing, but she didn’t want to, and she was quiet on the ride home.  She came home and held Herbie for a little bit. 

By suppertime she had cheered up enough to make some calls, and now I think she’s feeling better about the day. 

Dave and I are just so proud of her.  I remember when we used to be able to spell things in front of her we didn’t want her to understand (“Did you remember to bring her j-u-i-c-e?”)  She is smart.  She’s our best girl.  And now she can spell us under the table.

P.S.-For local friends, the bee aired last night, but will also air on PBS on Wednesday, 2/29 at 7:00 pm, and on Friday, 3/2 at 1:00 pm!  They cut out Rounds 8-13 though and skipped to Round 14, right after she was eliminated.  Bummer.