Middle School Spelling Champ - Again!!

It's the last year for Beenie to compete in the spelling bee.  Last year he followed up 2 years worth of second place by coming in first and moving on to the regional spelling bee. In a way that created less pressure as he's already been there. In a way it created more pressure - the pressure to repeat.

So, we were a little on edge last night as we sat down to watch the Middle School Spelling Bee.  26 entrants from grades 5-8 sat on stage, under the lights, and had to spell in front of an audience of parents and siblings. In each of the first five rounds, only a handful of kids got eliminated each time.

In the sixth round, all that changed, instantly.  The round started with five kids standing, and the first three each spelled their word incorrectly.  Then it was Beenie's turn.  He got "monstrosity" and spelled it correctly.  One kid followed, and he missed his word.  That left Beenie to spell one final "championship" word to win the whole thing.

The announcer said "herringbone", and Beenie got a sly little smile on his face. I could tell as he started h-e-r that he knew he had it, and he was just trying to slow himself down so as not to make a silly mistake.  r-r-i-n-g-b-o-n-e, and bam - he's the champion for the second year in a row!!!

I swore I was not going to get all worked up this year.  Since he did this last year, I was good with however he did.  I was wrong. When the kids started missing in round 6, my heart was pounding.  When I hit the stage, I wrapped him in a big bear hug (much to his chagrin, I'm sure).  So much for the cool, collected, dad.

Again, we're on to the regional bee, where the words are exponentially harder. We'll see what happens.

The (correctly spelled) words from this bee:
auburn
cascade
navigator
enzyme
unanimous
monstrosity
herringbone