Exaggerate. Grievous. Aberration. Seizure. Abscess. Saboteur. Pistachio. Extirpate. Pharaoh. Amylaceous. These words knocked out 10 of the 12 teams competing for the title of best spellers in the Morongo Basin at the 23rd Annual Spell-a-thon, held Saturday morning in Joshua Tree. Managing editor Tami Roleff competed in the spelling bee, and can’t wait to spell out the results…
The final two teams of the 23rd Annual Spell-a-Thon, the Silky Spellbinders, composed of myself, Sherri Bevan, and Mary Kay Buckley, and the Letterhead Shrikes, made up of Katie Sosayachanh, Marilyn Lutz, and Joe Zarki, got up to battle it out in a one-on-one competition. Unfortunately for the Silky Spellbinders, we went down on our very first word, bibelot, a word that means “a small trinket.” The Letterhead Shrikes spelled bibelot successfully, and then won the spelling bee with the word pusillanimous, meaning “timid.” The spell-a-thon is a fundraiser for the Morongo Basin Coalition for Adult Literacy sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Twentynine Palms. The team with the most pledges was Cathy and the Lascivious Lads of Copper Mountain College, who brought in more than $700 in pledges.
LETTERHEAD SHRIKES WIN ADULT LITERACY SPELLING BEE
