The "Please Excuse My Spelling" Story

It was an ordinary day.  A Spelling "B" day to be exact.  I'm wandering around the Manheim Township Middle School auditorium taking photos of the yearly Spelling "B" that is held yearly to find entrants from Manheim Township for the Lancaster County Spelling "B".  

The auditorium in the Manheim Township Middle School in
Lancaster, PA.  The annual Spelling "B" is taking place on the
school stage with parents and friends in the audience.  I did
not use closeup photos of the participants in case parents did
not care to have their students shown on the internet. 60
students participated in the competition.

Tonight there were 29 students from the Middle School, which is grades 7 and 8, and 31 students from the Landis Run Inter- mediate School vying for a few spots in the Lancaster County "B".  I do the school yearbook for both schools and I plan to use the same group photo I took in both of the books.  Fun evening with the students taking turns trying to spell English language words.  All students assembled on the school stage, sitting in pre-assigned seats, with a very large tag around their neck with a number on it.  When the "B" started, students, one by one, approached one of the two microphones, heard a word given them by the announcer and attempted to spell it.  They were allowed to ask to have it repeated, have a definition or be given what part of speech it may be such as a noun, pronoun, verb, etc.  If they failed to spell it correctly one of the three judges would sound a bell and the student would be out of the competition.  

Some students came in their finest clothes while others
chose their daily school clothes.  Strangely, I counted
three young boys wearing bow ties.

If a student were lucky they would get an easy word such as "trip" or "soup" while an unlucky student may get a word such as "exemplary" or "insti- tution".  As the competition began, I was amazed at a few things: the physical size of the students in the three grades, the stage presence of some of the participants and how the words offered to each student so much seemed to match them.  First, some of the students were clearly at least 12 inches taller than others while some were a good 50 pounds larger than others.  Secondly, some students had no fear of standing in front of a half-full auditorium of parents and friends while others were scared to death.  Thirdly, the same students seemed to get fairly easy words during each round.  I know the words are not assigned to specific students and as the rounds start to eliminate participants, tough words may fall to just about anyone.  

This young girl stood on her toes every time she came
to the microphone to take her next word.

Some words just seemed to fit the student who was going to spell it such as one very tall girl had to spell "stellar" while a short chubby boy got the word "waddle" and as he walked away from the mic you would swear he got the word on purpose.  Then as the "B" started to eliminate students and the mood of the auditorium became tense, some woman's phone played a song that all could hear.  It was only an hour ago that the teacher who was the sponsor of the "B" asked politely that all turn off any sound emitting products they might have with them.  In the end seven students qualified for the next level of competition.  Some students were visibly upset while others enjoyed their evening, win or lose.  I was able to get the photo I needed as well as a few to give to the sponsor for her scrapbook.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.