It’s S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G- B-E-E season!

By Rachel Belle

Listen to Feature: The Spelling Bee Pronouncer

Americans have come to rely heavily on spell check and autocorrect, and many are losing their ability to spell. But for some reason, perhaps the nostalgia or the endearing nerdery, we still have a lot of love for the classic spelling bee.

This weekend, 1st through 8th graders will compete in the King and Snohomish County Spelling Bee, and Feliks Banel will be the host and official pronouncer.

“It’s gone three and a half hours sometimes. The level of competition is intense. Sometimes we take a break and say ‘Let’s everyone stand up, let’s take a deep breath and just sort of stretch.’ You can hear a pin drop. Everyone in the audience, everyone wants the kids to succeed. It’s a very magical afternoon. Not what I expected when I started doing this 12 years ago.”

Spelling bees are known for their quirky cast of characters and Feliks says he sees all kinds of kids get up on the podium.

“There’s always the little boy who’s about three feet tall, they have to adjust the microphone down for him, and he’s really cute and his voice is high pitched and everyone is just rooting for him to win. He never wins but he usually makes it to the third or fourth round. There is always some over-confident speller who blows it on the first word because they’re spelling too fast. Then there’s those very shy people who, you can tell, they’ve spent the last couple weeks studying the words.”

Feliks says home schooled kids tend to perform the best because their parents can scrap the regular curriculum and focus solely on spelling words. A great example of this is Rebecca Sealfon, who won the national bee in 1997. She’s just as well known for her spelling talent, as she is for her enthusiastic spelling technique. You’re going to want to click on that link.

Feliks says the pressure is not just on the kids; it’s also on him to pronounce the words correctly.

“There have been a few times in the past where I have mispronounced words, or people have thought I mispronounced words, and kids have stumbled and staggered. So I carry some residual guilt with me over kids whose lives I probably destroyed over the years.”

Feliks says he lost his school spelling bee back in 1979 at Juanita High, so he feels more comfortable as a pronouncer than a speller. Although, he did win his 4th grade class spelling bee, by correctly spelling ‘parliament,’ a word he learned to spell from a pack of cigarettes.

The speller who wins this Sunday’s bee will go on to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington DC, and have that trip paid for. They’ll also win a Webster’s dictionary, a subscription to Encyclopedia Britannica, a savings bond, a $20 Amazon gift certificate and tickets to the Seattle Children’s Theater.

The Regional Bee is this Sunday, March 25, at 1 p.m., at Town Hall in Seattle and is absolutely FREE.