Clubhouse

These guys are smart spellers

Ask Kiwanians Ed Ridgway, Lee Leverette, and John Starrett how to spell pochismo, and the best they can do is hazard a guess. Fortunately, they guessed correctly this past February 23 and the Hartwell, Georgia, Kiwanis club was declared the winner of the Hart County Spelling Bee.

“I’m not a hundred percent sure we could spell it correctly now,” Lee admits, “but we guessed correctly when it counted.”

The annual event raises money for literacy programs at the Hart County Adult Learning Center. It brings together three-person teams of spellers from clubs and civic groups in the county. Money from entry fees—which this year totaled about US$9,000—is used by the learning center to help people earn GEDs (General Education Development credentials), learn Spanish, or go back to college.

Nearly every team that entered this year’s bee sailed through preliminary rounds. But as the competition continued—and words became more difficult—teams started dropping out until it was the Kiwanians in the sudden-death round, matching wits with spellers from St. Andrew Episcopal Church.

“The sudden-death round was a long, arduous process,” Lee recalls. “We spelled a lot of words correctly, but there were a lot of words we had to guess at. We guessed correctly most of the time, but misspelled a few. Fortunately, the Episcopalians didn’t know them either, so we continued on.”

In the end, it was Ed’s spelling of pochismo that earned the trophy. His guess was most fortunate, Lee notes, because pochismo actually is a slang word that is not found in most dictionaries. (For the record, pochismo is a term Mexicans use to describe American Hispanics who can’t speak Spanish correctly.)

Lee says his club will enter next year’s competition, but he and his fellow victors have yet to decide whether they will participate. “We think it might be better to retire as champions,” he explains.