History
2007 National Senior Spelling Bee Finalists in order of final placement with age, hometown and word that knocked them out of competition
1. Susan Hartner, 62, Hillsboro, Oregon, (winning word: bharal)
2. Randy Hilfman, 56, Woodinville, Washington, (vizsla)
3. Michael Petrina, Jr., 62, Arlington, Virginia, (towhee)
4. Marlene Harry, Brownsburg, Indiana, (gluhwein)
5. Rodney Murray, 53, Middletown, Delaware, (arrhythmia)
6. Joe Dickmann, 63, Richmond Heights, Missouri, (zoisite)
7. Steve Dornseif, 58, Fort Collins, Colorado, (paresthesia)
8. L. Kaleo Elia, 59, Salt Lake City, Utah, (lithotripsy)
9. Terry Harsney, Fairlawn, Ohio, (alula)
10. Bill Long, 54, Salem, Oregon, (troupial)
11. James Pearce, 60, Vancouver, British Columbia, (verruca)
12. Darrell Noe, 64, Arlington, Texas, (chukar)
13. Larry Grossman, 54, Northwood, North Dakota, (urticaria)
14. Mary McClintock, 62, Fort Collins, Colorado, (corrigendum)
15. Mary Ann Hungerford, 55, Granville, Ohio, (hornswoggle)
Competition intense at AARP sponsored National Senior Spelling Bee
CHEYENNE, WYOMING (June 17, 2006) - After 20 rounds of rigorous spelling Hal Prince of Palo Alto, Calif. correctly spelled piezometer (an instrument for measuring pressure or compressibility) to win the 2006 National Senior Spelling Bee held in Cheyenne, Wyo. today.
"Part of the reason I did this was to see if it's possible to learn the whole dictionary. It's not," Prince said.
Prince studied by making lists of words and audio tapes of their pronunciation and spelling, which he listened to while commuting to and from work and while running or walking daily. "I think people probably thought I was crazy because I walked along spelling words out loud."
The bee was started a dozen years ago by a group of AARP members in Cheyenne who wanted a way to challenge their friends and fellow retirees to keep their minds sharp as they age. It is open to anyone age 50 or older, except previous winners.
The AARP-sponsored bee is similar in format to the Scripps Howard bee for students, but the 50-plus aged spellers get to miss three words before being knocked out of the competition, they pay their own way to participate in the bee and are competing for a modest purse ($100 for the top speller).
"The money doesn't seem to be the draw," AARP Wyoming Director Rita Inoway said. "Many of the competitors study all year long, and then pay their own way to Cheyenne to compete for the honor of winning the championship title."
The age of competitors ranged from 50 to 86. Spellers arrived in Cheyenne from as far away as Anchorage, Alaska, and Eunice, Louisiana. This year's competition included three state senior spelling champions and the winner of the Dallas-area regional senior spelling bee.
By the end of the written round of 100 words, the top 16 spellers advanced into the finals. All of the finalists spelled 90 or more words correctly.
At the end of the first three rounds of the finals, two contestants were knocked out, leaving 14 to continue in their pursuit.
When pronouncer Dave Lerner said, "schadenfreude," a collective groan filled the room. When he read the definition: an enjoyment gained at the expense of others, the contestants laughed. But contestant Tom Lavery of Ohio, didn't give them a reason to be joyful at his expense; he slowly and cautiously spelled the word correctly. Silence fell over the crowd.
After each contestant received one more word for the fifth round, the number of finalists fell to 13.
Nearly every competitor in the sixth round of the finals missed his or her word. Some of the words that stumped contestants included: thiouracil, eurythermal, dithiocarbamate, quadrumanous, ovalbumin, fluorosis, phytoalexin, zwitterion, and parthenogenesis.
Words that were spelled correctly included: braggadocio, argentiferous, doppelganger, and vinaigrette.
One more competitor dropped, leaving 12. In the next round, seven were correct, four stumbled, but the field remained at 12. At the conclusion of the eighth round, 10 contestants remained.
The ninth round cut the field in half. The final five contestants were: Dr. Darrell Noe of Arlington, Texas; Bill Long of Salem, Ore.; Hal Prince of Palo Alto, Calif.; and Nancy Leasure of Danville, Calif.
After two more rounds, Leasure missed hamantaschen, leaving the four men to continue in the championship quest. The Ohio state senior spelling champion, Tom Lavery, missed his word - crossopterygian -- in the next round, reducing the field to three.
Long struggled with tryptophan, which means a crystalline essential amino acid distributed in protein. Noe missed scorpaenid (a type of bony fish) in the next round to finish in second place. Prince spelled piezometer correctly to win the National Senior Spelling Bee championship without missing a single word in the finals portion of the bee.
2006 National Senior Spelling Bee finalists in order of final placement, with age, hometown, profession, and words missed in final rounds
- Hal Prince, 54, Palo Alto, Calif., computer programmer
- Darrell Noe, 63, Arlington, Texas; urban planner
(chaussure; rhynchocephalian; scorpaenid)
- Bill Long, 53, Salem, Oregon; law professor
(onychophoran; thiouracil; tryptophan)
- Tom Lavery, 62, Akron, Ohio;
(rocaille; phytoalexin; crossopterygian)
- Nancy Leasure, 67, Danville, Calif.; retired secretary
(zwitterion; lebensraum; hamantaschen)
- Mary Kay Hemmer, 57, Cheyenne, Wyo.; court records transcriber
(maieutic; ostracoderm; zucchetto)
- Linda Goertz, 58, Portland, Oregon; executive assistant
(ovalbumin; kakiemon; exsiccate)
- Polly Stewart, 62, Salt Lake City, Utah; retired English professor
(quadrumanous; trypanasomiasis; younker)
- Julie Golden, 66, Portland, Oregon; retired nurse
(revetment; epexegesis; komatik)
- Scott Firebaugh, 52, Kokomo, Indiana; high school math and physics teacher
(fioritura; eurythermal; phillumenist)
- Lenore Collins, 66, Mentor, Ohio; retired proofreader, technical writer
(fluorosis; egalitarian; oligophagous)
- Rev. Steve Hislop, 59, Grand Junction, Colo.; retired teacher
(dithiocarbamate; verbigeration; myrmidons)
- Judy Parsons, 60, York, Pennsylvania;
(ameliorate; meningococcus; parthenogenesis)
- Jason Blake, 67, Roslyn, Wash.; retired from forestry
(ayurveda; pharmacodynamics; trousseaux)
- Linda Ott, Fort Collins , Colo.;
(boule; megillah; rickettsia)
- Reta Lorenz, 86, Laramie, Wyo.; homemaker
(andouille; xerophthalmia; trichotillomania)
National Senior Spelling Bee 2005
RESULTS: Oral rounds
Ranks 16 through 1, with missed word and word number
16 - Laura Steele - quercitron - 181
15 - John Haniszewski - schizophrenia - 188
14 - MT Casey - legerdemain - 207
13 - Andrea Coelho - entelechy - 212
12 - Ruth Wright - epistemology - 217
11 - Mary Kay Hemmer - frugivorous - 223
10 - Brian Greene - atherosclerosis - 227
09 - Debra Rotroff - tarsometatarsus - 229
08 - Sue Carlass - epichlorohydrin - 233
07 - Debra Griffin - opprobrium - 244
06 - Charles Underwood - kakiemon - 255
05 - Lenore Collins - urceolate - 260
04 - Patricia Hanson - phillumenist - 262
03 - LaRae Lawson - passementerie - 275
02 - Bill Long - cappelletti - 276
01 - David Riddle
Veteran Spelling Champion Wins 2005 National Senior Bee
 CHEYENNE – By winning the National Senior Spelling Bee Saturday, Dave Riddle claimed his third senior spelling bee victory in as many months.
After a competition so fierce that it required a spell-off for second place, Riddle, a 52-year-old attorney from Pacific Grove, Calif., outlasted 16 grueling rounds of oral spelling during the finals of the 2005 National Senior Spelling Bee, held at the AARP Wyoming office in Cheyenne, Wyo.
In the final round, Riddle correctly spelled “ptosis,” which means a sagging or prolapse of an organ or another body part, while the remaining two finalists both missed their words that round, “passementerie.” and “cappelletti.” The tie for second place was broken after LaRae Lawson, 61, of Stockton, Calif., missed “ctenophore” and Bill Long, 53, of Salem, Ore., correctly spelled “logorrhea.”
“Ctenophore” means marine animals having biradial symmetry and “logorrhea” refers to excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness.
After two hours of oral spelling, a field of 16 finalists narrowed to five people: Riddle, Lawson, Long, and Lenore Collins, 66, of Mentor, Ohio, and Patricia Hanson, 71, of Apple Valley, Calif.
The final five dueled for just 15 minutes before Collins and Hanson were eliminated, pitting two attorneys – Riddle and Long – against Lawson, a proofreader and former medical transcriptionist.
Riddle emerged as champion from an original field of 21 competitors from seven states, including the current Pennsylvania state senior champion and a veteran of the 1965 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Riddle won $150, Long, $50 and a $50 savings bond, and Lawson, $25.
This year’s competitors, all 50 or older, traveled about 27,000 collective miles, round trip, to be part of the Bee.
The National Senior Spelling Bee is hosted by AARP Wyoming, AARP Chapter 310, the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle newspaper, and WyomingNetwork, Inc. The bee was created in 1995 by AARP chapter members in Cheyenne to challenge others to keep their minds active while having fun.
Registration is open for the 2006 National Senior Spelling Bee, June 17, 2006 in Cheyenne.
2004 National Senior Spelling Bee Winner Named in Cheyenne
 CHEYENNE – The 2004 National Senior Spelling Bee sponsored by AARP Wyoming and two local AARP chapters was held in Cheyenne today. Its winner was no novice to spelling bees.
Fifty-two year old Jeff Kirsch of Madison, Wisconsin was flawless during two and a half hours of grueling oral competition, where spellers are allowed to miss up to three words without being eliminated. Kirsch, a Spanish and Portuguese lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, took top honors after correctly spelling the word: millefiori, which means “a thousand flowers,” and is a term used to describe Italian glasswork where several glass rods are fused together and cut cross-wise to create a floral pattern.
Of the 100 written words Kirsch needed to complete to advance to the final round of oral competition, he only missed three.
This wasn’t Kirsch’s first spelling bee. Thirty-nine years ago, when he was 13-years-old, Kirsch competed in the National Spelling Bee sponsored by Scripps Howard. At that bee, he spelled correctly through seven rounds of competition.
Kirsch said the documentary “Spellbound” is partly responsible for him competing in today’s National Senior Spelling Bee. |
