one of Frank J's readers shares a name with the speller from hell, as Bikermommy and i called him back in the day, so i was inspired to share his little story with y'all.
i recently posted about being a great speller and making it all the way to the regional bee in the 8th grade.
at that regional bee, held at some old hotel (Green Oaks, maybe?) west of downtown Fort Worth, there was one speller who forever etched himself into my memory and undoubtedly the memories of many others in that room.
his name was Andrew Pearce, though Bikey and i didn't learn his name until years later -- we just called him the speller from hell. he was in 4th or 5th grade at the time, skinny as a flagpole, and he established his presence within the competition quickly. and with complete abandonment of tact and utter lack of clue (understandable, given his age). during one of the first rounds, he waited at the microphone for his word: "mirr-uhd". can you repeat the word? "mirr-uhd," repeated the judge/word reader. definition, please. "reflected..."
immediately, young Andrew's eyes showed recognition, and that flicker of light was followed by something no one expected and to which no one could react. young Andrew corrected the judge. "mirRURRRRRRd, the word is mirRURRRRRRd". no one knew what to do, and i sat on stage glued to my chair, mouth surely agape. the judge recovered quickly and repeated the word one more time. "yes, mirr-uhd."
later that day... i had already screwed up spelling "acclaim" and now sat in the audience with my English teacher, Bikey and Scott, who had gotten to tag along since he was the runner-up in the school bee and our English teacher knew i had a crush on him... young Andrew now had to spell "hallucination". so he began...
"hallucination. h-a-l-l-u---- could you repeat the word?"
"hallucination."
"hallucination. h-a-ll-u-c-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. hallucination."
DING!
everyone in the crowd spelled hallucination in their own heads. h-a-l-l-u-c-i-n-a-t-i-o-n --- what was wrong with that? young andrew was right! so he asked. (i don't remember this next part verbatim, but it went something like this...)
"why did you ding me?"
"because you spelled the word wrong."
"no i didn't."
"yes you did. the correct spelling is h-a-l-l-u-c-i-n-a-t-i-o-n."
"that's how i spelled it."
"no, you spelled it with only one L."
everyone looked at each other and said, "no he didn't." he said the same. "no i didn't."
we then went to a TAPE review (at a spelling bee, something so high-brow as instant-replay!), and everyone listened again. and all reached the same conclusion. young Speller from Hell shouldn't be dismissed; the first time through, he used 2 Ls. the 2nd time through, he did run his Ls together, but they were still both included.
unfortunately for young Speller, the panel of 3 judges were the only folks in the room who disagreed with the tape. the poor kid was heartbroken, and you would have been, too, had it been you... those of us who witnessed the whole event were booing and hissing at the judges every chance we had.
three or four years later, i was fishing for the crossword puzzle in the Life section of the newspaper... there was a picture of an 8th-grade boy, skinny as a pole, a bit taller, but still unmistakably our favorite speller. it was the Speller from Hell. i ran in to find Bikey, convinced i had the cure for cancer, or at least you'd think so had you seen me. "mom!! do you recognize him?" "hmm.... is that the Speller from Hell?" "yes!!"
he was playing violin in the picture, and the caption told us his name was Andrew Pearce. i wonder what happened to him.
My 5th grade teacher "volunteered" me for the school spelling bee because I was the best speller in the school.. I hated it though and was embarrassed so I blew the contest on purpose.. it was not public though so I didn't have to shame my family or anything. I deliberately misspelled "thrice". Got away with it too! And avoided the public humiliation of being in the district spelling bee. Whew!
Posted by: Mike Rock | Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 01:57 AM
I'd like to know what happened to him myself. How about a search of some kind? It must be possible; you can let him know that you remember. Even after years, sometimes that's important.
Posted by: BeeBee | Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 10:43 AM
say, mike rock, i didn't find it at all humiliating to go to both district and regional bees. it's never embarrassing to be so smart. :)
BeeBee, i'm curious. i may start looking for him just to say hi, but then again, he might not like to be reminded of being so blatantly cheated by a judge who got his feelings hurt, maybe i'd just be bringing up painful memories. but i think i will look for him.
Posted by: sarahk | Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 01:27 PM
Boy, oh boy, did that ever strike a chord in me! I have a hefty collection of trophies and ribbons myself, being The Speller From Hell, too.
It's a curse, I tellya! I even find myself circling typos in library books, fer [carbonated beverages]!
[shazam].
Posted by: Julie | Monday, June 14, 2004 at 02:36 PM
I was also a great speller in 4th grade (4 times undefeated - 30 kids in the class).
Of course, by 8th grade, I was playing cello, so my life was completely different :-)
Posted by: Harvey | Tuesday, June 15, 2004 at 02:04 PM
*sigh* great speller and the cello? you have jumped way up my list of cool people, harvey. that's good, since you were way down near the bottom. ;) j/k
Posted by: sarahk | Tuesday, June 15, 2004 at 08:53 PM