Spelling Bee a Long Time Coming for Petrina

On May 28, in Washington, D.C., in front of a live, prime-time television audience, Kavya Shivashankar correctly spelled the word “laodicean” to become the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.

The thirteen year-old girl from Kansas was awarded more than $40,000 in cash and prizes. And the fanfare continued. Among other celebrations for the superstar were appearances on ESPN’s Sports Center (where she was jokingly asked to spell Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last name – she faild to do so correctly), “Live With Regis and Kelly,” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” She also has acquired something that seems to surround all of today’s famous and successful people: a Wikipedia page in her name. On Saturday, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in front of no television audience, Michael Petrina Jr. spelled “woad” correctly to win the American Association of Retired Persons’ (AARP) national spelling bee. The sixty-four year-old Virginia resident beat forty-five spellers (as opposed to the 292 that Shivashankar topped) and claimed a mere five hundred dollars, a trophy, and a speller’s best friend: a dictionary kit. Among the spellers at the AARP’s version of the competition were second place finisher Scott Firebough of Tennessee and third place finisher Gil Couts of Montana. The Scripps National Spelling Bee is somewhat of an anomaly in our country when it comes to competition, as the grand stage is for children younger than high school students, as opposed to an open field where the very best can truly be identified. The Scripps Bee began in 1925 and was first televised in 1946, as opposed to the AARP Bee, which did not materialize until 1996. In 2002, a documentary about the Scripps Bee called “Spellbound,” undoubtedly increased the Bee’s popularity and showed the world some behind-the-scenes reasons for watching, such as the immense pressure some of the children feel, the different backgrounds they all come from, and the emotional roller coaster that is childhood. There are some explanations for why the child spellers get so much attention (there are no major competitions for adults). For example, it is far more impressive to see a kid perform an academic task than an adult who has been through more schooling than these kids have lived. There is also the potential that the children really are the best spellers, as memorization skills are strongest during youth. The only other American youth competition that rivals the spelling bee in popularity is the Little League World Series, which is televised annually on ESPN, but even so, the sport pales in comparison to Major League Baseball. Some college sports outdo their professional counterparts but that usually has more to do with team affiliation than respect for the abilities of the athletes. Although spelling is not a sport, its televising on ESPN (the finals were on ABC, but the preliminaries on ESPN) makes it easily comparable to sports. Perhaps in nature it is similar to chess, a competition of both memorization and thought processes. Petrina’s story is perhaps just as remarkable as Shivashankar’s. While the eighth grader won in her fourth trip to the Bee after being a finalist each year (she finished tenth, eighth, and fourth respectively in 2006, 2007, and 2008), the AARP champion’s quest began fifty-one years ago when he won his state’s spelling bee but lost at the Scripps National contest. That seems to write a Hollywood story of its own. In the end, the popularity of a competition comes down to how many people are interested in watching or following the event, and however intangible it may be, the idea of cute kids spelling seems to outdo that of Rhodes Scholars and neurosurgeons. So the kids will continue to have their day in the sun, but it does not diminish the accomplishments of Michael Petrina, Jr.