Spelling Bee buzzes to new heights
Photo by Sean Allen, Brant News
The Spelling Bee team from the Brant County Health Unit.
Brant News
By Brian Shypula
The Brant Skills Centre’s 12th annual adult spelling bee made its mark with a big number.
The June 4 event in support of adult learning, literacy and essential skills training in Brantford and the County of Brant raised a record $9,100 through pledges and fundraising.
Braemar House School hosted the spelling bee, which featured 10 teams: Braemar House School (Word Nerds), Brant County Health Unit (Queen Bees), Brant News (Grammatical Errors), Brant Skills Centre (Spellers on Board), Flying Camel Advertising, Design + PR (Winged Wordies), GenNext (Commonwealth of Knowledge), Millards (Bean Counters), St. Leonard’s Community Services (Punktuators), Steer Davies Gleave (Spellbound Express) and the South Dumfries Historical Society (Histerical Society).
The 2014 Spelling Bee winners, the Histerical Society, made up David Simpson, Deb Andre and Cliff Jones, repeated as champions.
They took the event after 18 rounds and spelling “dicotyledon” correctly. A dicotyledon is one of the two groups into which all the flowering plants or angiosperms were formerly divided.
Finishing in second place were Ann Elwood and Andrew Nicholls of Spellers on Board from the Brant Skills Centre. They were eliminated after misspelling “geosynchronous.”, First-time competitors the Queen Bees (Alison Schure, Naika Duvalsaint and Kathy Lickley) finished third. They were eliminated after misspelling tickicidal.
City of Brantford town crier David McKee was MC.
Event officials included County of Brant Public Library CEO Gay Kozak Selby as scribe, Brant Skills Centre volunteer Leslie Ion as pronouncer, Wray Underhill as the “Mulligan Man” and county Coun. Robert Chambers, Brant Skills Centre instructor Liz Gosse and volunteer Ed Ackworth as judges.
The Literacy Cup, sponsored by Enterprise Brant, is presented to the team that raises the most funds. This year the cup was presented to the Spellbound Express team from Steer Davies Gleave.
The Team Spirit prize, presented to the team with the greatest spirit and fan support, went to the St. Leonard’s Community Services’ the Punktuators.
The top individual fundraiser prize, donated by Media Dimensions, went to Mikki Basha of the Punktuators.
“We are so thrilled that this year’s Spelling Bee was such a great success,” said Lori Bruner, executive director of the Brant Skills Centre. “The event would not be possible without the support of our many sponsors and donors, and of course our enthusiastic competitors who not only raise funds, but participate in a fun, community-building event. We couldn’t do it without them.”