By Gary Nager
“eW Cmae. eW aSw. eW Plundreded!”
Just seeing if you’re paying attention. I know we still have spelling mistakes in pretty much every issue of this publication, but it’s not because I can’t spell or because I don’t have spell-check on my computer.
In fact, after leading a team of Rotarians to a disappointing tied-for-third place in the West Pasco Chamber’s Spelling Bee last year, I called my shot and predicted — both at my Wesley Chapel Rotary Club meeting the day before and as the Rotary Spelling Bee (sponsored by the club of which I am proud to be a member) began on March 27 — that the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News “Pirates” would take home the “Best in Bee” prize as the new top spellers in Pasco County. And yes, I am proud to say, we did come home with those bragging rights.
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The Rotary “Bee,” held in the banquet room at the beautiful Tampa Bay Golf & Country Club (located just off the S.R. 52 exit of I-75) featured a packed house of 28 four-player teams, delicious heavy hors d’oeuvres, adult beverages, incredible costumes and team “themes,” valuable prizes, the camaraderie, fun and “Service Above Self” spirit of Rotary and some really, really tough spelling words — all in a fantastically fun environment created by event chair Erin Meyer and her amazing committee, which raised a lot of money.
The event was emceed by Dr. Stanley Giannet, the Provost of the new Pasco-Hernando State College’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch, who literally should replace Alex Trebek as the host of “Jeopardy!” (if and when Alex ever retires). The judges were Ray Gadd, the assistant superintendent of Pasco County Schools, Rob Aguis, the School District’s director for career & technical education, and Jolene Furman, a Kindergarten teacher at New River Elementary.
The Bee featured three rounds of words, but in the first two rounds, if your team didn’t come up with the correct spelling in the time allotted, you could “bribe” your way back in by donating an additional $10 to the evening’s coffers — and all of the proceeds from the event will go to the cause of education in Pasco County, although the top three finishing teams — our Neighborhood News Pirates (yours truly, my fellow Rotarians Dane Parilo {see pg. 3} and Vicki Hamilton and freelancer Kathleen Schiop), the “Men In Black” (chiropractors Dr. Bill Scheu and Dr. Pablo Rivera and financial gurus Ron Oldano and Patrick Murtha) and one other received cash prizes to donate to the charity/nonprofit organization of their choice.
Our $200 top prize will be donated to the Tampa Fisher House, the residence on the campus of the James A. Haley Veterans Administration Hospital, which houses the families of the wounded soldiers being treated at the hospital for free.
The spelling words were really tough and even yours truly misspelled three in the first two rounds, which cost me (as the team captain and anchor) $30 in “bribes” to the judges in order to even make it to Round 3, when bribes were no longer accepted.
The Men in Black and the Pirates were the only two teams to correctly spell each of the first four words in Round 3 — “quadrennial,” “seismography,” “tintinnabulation” (which sucker-punched at least half of the remaining teams) and “verisimilitude” (which dropped everyone else out). I was surprised that the Men were unable to correctly spell “facetious,” but I was elated when Dr. Giannet said “uh-oh” as he looked at both teams’ attempts to spell it because I knew we had it right. I also realized that if any of the words I misspelled in Round 2 had been in Round 3, we wouldn’t have won at all.
My congratulations for a job well done goes out to not only Dr. Giannet and the judges, but to Erin and her committee — Shantelle Johannesen, Christen Eddy, Karina Azank, Sabrina DiRoma, Dineen Wasylik, Larry Giannone, Carla Armstrong, Hutch Brock, Stacey Capagrosso and Dulce Leon — for their incredible planning, organizing, selling of sponsorships and especially, the running of the event itself, which Erin says will net more than $10,000 for the Pasco Education Foundation and the club’s charities.
In addition to the food and beverages and laying out the event, the committee also made sure there was a 50-50 raffle (for more than $500!), random drawings for other amazing prizes, baskets of cheer of liquor and wine/champagne and, as anyone who was there can tell you, one of the best times all of us have ever had doing something educational.
I also wanted to acknowledge the evening’s major sponsors — the Shops at Wiregrass mall, Suncoast Schools Credit Union, Ierna’s Heating & Cooling, Brock Law, St. Leo University, the Wiregrass Foundation, the Florida Hospital Physicians Group, Connie Bladon, Focal Point Business Coach, Ron Oldano, Christian Brothers Auto (LOL), DLW Law, Paul Davis, Eukulele Brands, Knowledge Points, the Tampa Bay Times, Scene On Glass, the Hampton Inn & Crazy Chris DJ. Awesome job, everyone!
For more great Spelling Bee photos, visit WCNeighborhoodNews.com!
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