~today I was a witness to one~

I love  a good spelling bee.

Today I was a witness to one.

Our school had their annual spelling bee this afternoon.  We've known it was coming for a month or so now.  Any child that wanted to participate could sign up to be in it.  All they had to do was practice the words and show up this afternoon.

It was as simple as that.

For the past couple of weeks, the kids and I have been having "mock" spelling bees each morning during our language arts hour.  I wanted them to get the feel of what it would be like this afternoon.  Everyone participated in the practice ones, even though not everyone wanted to be in the real thing today.  I told them they could learn from one another by working together on the practice part of it.

And so they did.

Each morning as they went out after missing a word, they returned to their desks and continued to listen to the others practicing.  They tried to say the words in their head before the person I was calling on at the time said anything.  They began to learn by osmosis as kids spelled words like tusk, lotion, backpack, London, beginning, smirk, and a gazillion more on the list.  I felt confident after this morning's practice, that things would go ok for them this afternoon.

They did well.

It was exactly as I predicted.

13 of the 17 participants in today's bee were from my 3rd grade room. For the longest time, well into 5 rounds, they stayed the course.  One by one, they tackled each word that was pronounced to them.  After the 5th round, they began to drop out on words that were among the most difficult of the list.  As each one left the front of the gymnasium, you could sense how sad many of them were.  It was hard not to get upset.  After practicing that long and hoping to be one of the final two, I can certainly understand their sorrow.

In the end, one of my young ladies was the second place winner and one of the young men was the 1st place winner.  It was so good to see the smiles on their faces as they were awarded their special plaques that proclaimed them winners in today's contest.

We stopped for a moment after it was over to take our picture.  It's an afternoon that I will always remember as one that was filled with time very well spent.

When I was a little girl, spelling was my favorite subject.  I may have been a charter member in the fifth grade of the "I Hate Math" club at Haven Grade School, but give me a list of 100 words to learn to spell and I was happy.  I have never quite figured that one out.  From 3rd grade on to 8th grade, I was always a member of the Central Kansas Sunflower League spelling contest team.  

I couldn't run very fast or hit a softball very far, but I sure could tell you how to spell just about any word put before me.

I told the kids about the time when I was an 8th grader and actually qualified to go to the county spelling bee that year.  I studied all those words like crazy and determined myself that I would be heading to the state bee that year and maybe even the national one.  I was a 13-year old with big dreams.

It didn't quite exactly go as I planned it.

I believe there were 14 of us down in the basement of the Reno County Courthouse that spring day in 1969.  I sized up the competition and just hoped I would be given words that were familiar to me.  Soon the pronouncing of the words began.  

My first few rounds were uneventful.  The words that I was given were not all that hard and if I just stopped to think about them I could do just fine.  All around me kids were being eliminated from the contest.  I was thankful that I didn't get the words they had been given, that's for sure. Finally it was down to the last 5.  I was still in.

My good fortune fell apart in that round as I was pronounced a word that I had never even heard of before.  I asked for it to be pronounced again and then to be used in a sentence.  I can remember asking for a definition of it and still not sure what in the heck that word was.  It might as well have been in another language because as far as I was concerned, it was.

It was the word haphazardly.  

Imagine that.

I had no clue as to what the word looked like, none whatsoever.  The only thing I knew was to just start spelling it and hope for the best.  I should have expected the worse.

"H-A-P", I slowly began.

I remember stopping and pausing for the longest of moments before I began again.  It's all you can do when you know that finally at long last, you have been given a word that you will misspell.  I began once again.

"H-A-P-H-A-Z-Z-A-R-D-L-Y?"I asked in a timid little girl's voice.

The pronouncer was sorry.  That wasn't correct.  Wouldn't you know it?  Only 1 "z" is needed. My illustrious career as a speller was ended.  I wouldn't be shaking the President's hand as a result of winning the national spelling bee after all.  

I went home.

Defeated.

Today when I watched my students up in the front of the gym, I remembered so much how I once was just like they are now.  I felt their nervousness as they waited for different words to be pronounced.  I empathized with the ones who made mistakes and had to go out of the contest, sometimes with tears in their eyes.  I rejoiced with the ones who made it nearly to the end and I honestly could have just cried for them each when they didn't make it to the final spots.  My heart swelled with pride to see the top two spellers and to know that the art of spelling is alive and well.

This day I was a witness to it.

It was here on the Oklahoma prairie.

In a place they once called "the Big Pasture".