Spelling Bee! The Joe Reigel Story

–by Joe Reigel–

Joe Riegel, pondering the meaning of “croynics”

Early last year, myself and eighteen others entered the Orcas Island Christian School hoping to win the spelling bee. Many of these hopefuls proved to be complete losers. After a powerful forty five minutes, I went up against the previous year’s winner in an epic one-on-one battle that lasted for eight nail-bitingly intense rounds. After my opponent monumentally failed while spelling the word “flagellatory,” I stepped up to the podium, grabbed the mic, and like a pro rapper belted out the letters “C-R-Y-O-N-I-C-S”. The crowd went wild. In the chaotic minutes that followed, I was given a Kindle Fire, a magnificent plastic trophy, and interviewed by the press. I left the Christian School gymnasium feeling pretty good, and returned to school where the 8th Grade algebra class was in session. Although that deflated my sense of accomplishment, I still knew that I had finally won something worth winning. Because it would show up on my transcript.

But my journey was far from over.

I arrived in Mount Vernon a month and fourteen days later with my mom, who had appointed herself my “spelling bee coach.” I would have completely slacked off in lieu of studying if it wasn’t for her. It was raining hard all that weekend, and it created a depressing atmosphere. I spent most of my time at the Tulip Inn across from the Walmart studying the list of regional spelling bee words that I would be reciting, as I had been doing since January. I felt like I was doing well.

But then a problem arose.

At one point during all this, my mom said something like, “oh shoot, it looks like you have to know the definitions for all these words too.” It was in the fine print and no one had noticed it up until the day before the bee. I was in shock. Was this really happening?
“Oh shucks, I’m gonna lose,” I said, except using much stronger language. Under most other circumstances my mom would have snapped “Joseph!” but in this case she didn’t say anything. I was just blown away that this could have happened on the day before the spelling bee. It was like something out of a movie, except I don’t watch movies about spelling. I studied and I studied hard until late at night, only stopping when I realized I could both spell and define “baedeker.” What is a baedeker? It’s some kind of book. I set down the packet of words, went to the vending machine to get a Coke and then tried to get some sleep.

The revelation that I had to know the spelling and definitions of all these fancy words weighed heavily on my conscious, and after a couple hours of shifting around and being annoyed at the heater because it was making a lot of noise and fearing the spelling bee, I finally drifted off. What sleep I had was fraught with disturbing, hellish visions and at some point I awoke to the sound of screaming. Somewhere else in the hotel a man was screaming and whimpering. And these were not the screams of someone having a good time, either. Was this an omen? I glanced at the alarm clock and saw the time was 2:00 AM. Eight hours until the spelling bee. I closed my eyes, and when I reopened them it was 8:30. I studied the words and definitions again, packed up, and we drove over to Skagit Valley College, where I sat in the parking lot soaking in the words and definitions. The contestants were supposed to meet at a classroom next to the Phillip Tarro Theatre, where the event was being held, and when I arrived I found that, indeed, there was a very diverse group of students seated at desks all around the room. There were some weird little kids that looked like first or at best second graders, some preppy older girls, and then some people who looked like they were in the same boat as me. I took a seat at a vacant desk at the front of the room and pretty soon the head spelling bee person handed me a blue card and safety pin giving my name and hometown, which I clipped to my Nike shirt. It was the same Nike shirt I had won the Orcas spelling bee in. Elsewhere in the room, to my right as I recall, I heard someone talking loudly, in a very confident, precise tone. I glanced over and saw this guy who was my age talking to some little kid about how he was brimming with self-confidence. He was wearing a T-shirt that said “WannaBee” on the front. While I do recall his name, for the sake of all parties concerned I will refer to him as “The Man in Black.” This guy was a professional. Spelling bees were literally his entire life. He ate alphabet soup three meals a day. Apparently he had been at last year’s spelling bee, and I’m sure he was at the year before that’s as well. And since The Man in Black was in eighth grade, it was his last chance to win.

Maybe fifteen minutes later, we were herded out of the classroom single file and onto the stage in the Theatre, where a crowd of parents and senior citizens were gathered. I sat down in one of the folding chairs and waited for the whole “thank you for making this possible” thing to be over. Then the spelling started. I was surprised at first, because they didn’t ask us for the definitions. The weird little kids I described earlier folded pretty quickly, and soon it was just down to me, the preppy older girls, a few of the people in the same boat as me, and The Man in Black. A number of rounds in they started asking for the definitions, but it was unexpectedly easy because they would say things like “where would you go to the opera? A. the theatre B. Obama’s basement or C. a rap concert.” We all blew through that section pretty quick and then they shifted gears. The moderators decided that there was no point in having us recite the words we had memorized for the entire bee, since it would go on forever without any misspellings, so they went off the list. I was shocked and caught off guard. I spelled a few of the words without any trouble, but then they gave me the word scraggly. Now, if you do not encounter this word in your everyday reading, how would you spell it? When pronounced, it sounds like it has an “i,” as in “scraggily.” So I spelled scraggly with an “i.” And with that, I was finished.

I sat in the audience for the remainder of the spelling bee. The Man in Black, as I expected, stayed in longer than me. But only a few rounds later, they gave him a word, I don’t remember what it was but I remember thinking that it wasn’t very difficult, and he misspelled it badly. As he said the incorrect letter, he froze, and the color completely drained out of his face. He hesitated for a moment, shocked at his insurmountable error, spelled the word correctly from the beginning, and then abruptly walked off the stage. In the end it was one of the preppy girls that won. I got seventh place, which coincidentally was the same place my predecessor had got the year before. The champion won some crap like a dictionary and Scrabble game, and an all-expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. That would have been alright, although you had to memorize like a thousand words and know the definitions. Of course, I wouldn’t have actually studied or showed up to the National Spelling Bee, I would have spent all my time doing typical Washington D.C. stuff like visiting the Cuban Friendship Urn and climbing the White House fence. But that is neither here nor there.

Joe Reigel is an Orcas Island High School student.