Spell “Myasthenia”
Please spell “myasthenia.”
“Could you use that in sentence?” finalist Cory Davidson asks.
“Keith was informed that his myasthenia was brought on by overexertion and would disappear with rest,” says Ricky Hacking, co-host. “Myasthenia: a muscular debility.”
“Myasthenia. M-I-A-S-T-H-E-N-I-A. Myasthenia,” Davidson says into the microphone.
“That is incorrect,” Hacking replies.
After making it into the final eight and then the final four and battling back and forth more than 20 words, such as “Zwieback” “soliterraneous” and “chonolith” last year’s spelling bee champion, Davidson, lost to finalist Tracy Lund.
Lund went home with a Dell desktop computer donated by the Utah State University Bookstore.
Davidson, for second place, won an X Box game system donated by Atlas Marketing.
“My kids would have liked the X Box better, I’m sure, but I wanted the computer,” Lund said. She had not participated in a spelling bee since she won one in fourth grade.
“It’s been like 24 years,” Lund said.
The Associated Students of USU-sponsored spelling bee was organized by academics vice president Heidi Evans, the student academic counsel and volunteers.
“The spelling bee is important because it promotes academics,” Evans said.
“It takes you back to elementary school, when you were in the third grade in front of your entire class and your teacher would say ‘spell this word’,” she said. “And the little butterflies in your tummy that you got back then – they can come back. It’s a way to reminisce back to childhood – connect with the inner child.”
The spelling bee had 35 student participants and took place in the Taggart Student Center Lounge. There were around 100 people in the audience.
David Ackerman and Ricky Hacking, last year’s Mr. USU, hosted the event. The duo also hosted the Mr. USU pageant a month ago.
In the spirit of the event, Hacking was dressed as a lady bug.
“We’ve got some tough competition,” Hacking said. “A lot of people know how to spell here.”
Ackerman said the reason for that was the “spell-check on ‘Microsoft Word’.”
The spelling bee began with the participants splitting into five different groups scattered around the Sunburst Lounge for the preliminaries.
“Let’s get spelling,” Hacking said as contestants split into groups.
In the preliminaries, students were eliminated with such words as “pampero,” “turbulence” and “quadrilateral.”
“It’s terrible,” said Liz Livingston, a broadcast journalism junior, after misspelling “substantiate.” “I lost on such an easy word.”
The preliminaries ended after each group was down to three contestants, who moved on to the semi-finals.
“Let’s break into the semi final’s. S-E-M-I,” Hacking said.
For the semi finals, the remaining contestants were split into two groups where Ackerman and Hacking read selections from the semi final word list which included works like “deciphered,” “authoritarianism” and “unscrupulous.”
“[The words] are so random, you could study forever and you would have to read the whole dictionary, basically, to be ready for it,” said Mark Grammer, a senior in international studies. He misspelled “scarlantina,” which is an “acute contagious disease marked by fever,” according to the word list.
The semi finals ended with eight finalists – four from each group.
The final contestants were eliminated fairly quickly which focused the competition on the final four – Davidson, Lund, Kim Pyfer and John Crockett.
Crockett soon went out on “bacciferous” and Pyfer took third place when she misspelled “belligerent.”
Pyfer won a pre-ordered copy of Halo 2 donated by the Student Academic Counsel as her third place prize.
The final two, Lund and Davidson, spelled word after word correct, going through more than 20 words until they both spelled “paludal” incorrectly. Soon after came “myasthenia.”
“It sucked,” Davidson, who won a laptop last year, said. “This year was more intense.”
However, he said, “I’ve been tired of all the groupies following around the spelling bee champ. I can now live a normal life.”
During the event, Hacking and Ackerman raffled off prizes for those who lost.
Prizes came from local businesses.
They included a Rocky Mountain Dermatology $50 gift certificate, ski and bike tune-ups from The Sportsman, five Olive Garden $5 gift certificates, a free pair of shoes from Directive, two one hour massages from Stevens Chiropractic and Sunrise Cyclery water bottles and T-shirts.
-joelfeathers@cc.usu.edu
Hosts David Ackerman and Ricky Hacking took control of the spelling bee held in the TSC Sunburst Lounge Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Jamie Crane)