The Literate Lutherans

A few weeks ago I was talking to my mother on the phone when she told me that the wife of my former pastor asked her to be on her spelling bee team. I laughed out loud, partially at the idea of an adult spelling bee, but mostly because I know my mom.

"I told her I was in remedial reading in high school," my mom said, "but she said that didn't matter."

Somehow Tracy convinced my mother to join her and another woman from their church (Linda) in this venture, which I later found out was an event to benefit the Literacy Council of Bay City. Their team, the Literate Lutherans (can you get more Lake Wobegon?), had never lost this event (granted, it's only run for a few years).

I decided during that phone call that I had to go to see this momentous occasion, my mother spelling words on a stage. Imagine my disappointment when I found that only one person on the team actually spells a word at any given time, and that the honor did not have to rotate among team members. So the teams pick the person who does the best job spelling out loud (which is harder than it sounds) and that person could be the only one who speaks.

The event was held at the State Theatre, which was recently renovated to look more like it did in the 1930s, is decorated as that decade's vision of what a Mayan temple looked like. Read a very short history of the theatre here.

Before it started, the spellers and attendees had great hors d'oeuvres (that word was not on the list of words to be spelled) that included a yummy satay (also not on the list). It was a light crowd, which is too bad since it was a benefit. But it was a fun time nonetheless (also not on the list).

Here Linda, Tracy, and Donna (Mom) confer about the rules before going up onto the stage.

So serious and studious-looking, aren't they? But is was actually a lighthearted event. The judges were funny and charming and the other teams were not overly serious either.

You can tell by the way these women sit on stage that they grew up going to church. Their knees are together, their hands are folded demurely (not on the list), their chins are held up, and they are paying close attention. No fidgeting. After a practice round in which the words related to the organizations that the teams represented (pastor, return, smiling, interest), the real list began. And the words were easier than I'd anticipated (though I suppose they would be easy during the first few rounds).

Here's the list of words they got through before a winner was declared:

cherub
horizon
marine
privacy
stinger
tremor
wobble (at which the first disqualification occurred because the women spelled it "wabble")
carom (at which the Literate Lutherans were out because none of them knew the word, perhaps none of them had heard the word [at least, that's what their stunned expressions would have indicated], which is more frequently used as a sports term than anything else)
unique
trilogy
wholly
gyrate
mustache (which I would have spelled wrong because I thought it was "moustache" but according to Merriam Webster, it is a varient, so perhaps they would have accepted it)
sieve
risque
wrangle
counterfeit (at which the third team was disqualified, accidentally spelling it "countrfeit")
coquette

The team called the Spell Binders won, which was nice because they'd apparently been runners up to the Literate Lutherans in the past few years. The whole contest took just 14 minutes (probably about the same length of time it took to explain the rules) becaue there were only four teams and two were disqualified one right after the other.

I hope they can publicize this event better next year so they can make more money and have more teams participating. It was fun even if it was short.