Bee Stuff

This year's Regional Spelling Bee was a really good one.  

17 students, some elementary & some middle school. 

We went 25 rounds before we had a winner.

 There was a stretch of about 4 rounds without an error. 

I started wondering if we were going to have to take a bathroom break, it was going on so long.

  

But in the end,  the winner was a young man from Unity. 

He was so poised and had such a relaxed manner it was almost humorous.  

He won easily, I never doubted that he would get each word I pronounced.

This was my 5th year as Pronouncer, and it doesn't really get any easier for me. I study the words and the sentences ahead of time.  I watched / listened to a training module pronouncing every word.

And I still got caught up in a sentence with the word present in it, I was saying present and it was supposed to be present.  Once I got the pronunciation correct, the sentence made some sense. And present wasn't even the spelling word, geesh.

The good news this year is that no parent came to tell me I had made a mistake, whew.  I get nervous about doing a good job pronouncing and I get nervous for the kids.  

It's hard to see them miss their word, I know they are so disappointed.

I'll be paying attention to see if our winner does well at State. It would be fun to see one of our local kids get a chance for the Scripps National Bee.

In the meantime,  I'll enjoy my thankyou gift.