Documentaries have been made about them. Novels have been written about them and subsequently made into movies. The subject matter – spelling bees – may seem an unlikely source for high drama, but on Friday, April 20, a drama unfolded in the guise of The Grosse Pointe Academy annual spelling bee. The participants were finalists from grades 5 through 8. The audience was made up of fourth and fifth grade students and a handful of parents. According to fifth grade teacher Bob Lapadot, this year’s bee was the most intense he has witnessed in the 20 years he has served as school spelling bee moderator. The event lasted a record number of 88 rounds (last year’s bee, also a record, was only 22 rounds) and an unprecedented two hours, during which time the young audience of fourth and fifth graders sat spellbound.

Fifth grader Zachary Wood made it to the final three in his debut performance, but the final match-up came between defending champion Somers Brush and last year’s runner-up Alex Parker, both seventh graders. When Somers and Alex depleted the original spelling list provided to the judges, middle school principal Scott Tily was forced to delay the proceedings and run to his office to download a list of additional words. The finalists agreed that if they got through this list of 23 words without a clear champion, they would declare a draw. With four words remaining, Somers was given the word “camouflage.”  According to the rules declared at the beginning of the bee, a finalist in the final rounds between two participants is only eliminated if he or she incorrectly spells a word that his or her opponent is then able to spell correctly, along with the next word on the list. When Somers misspelled the word, Alex was able to come up with the correct spelling. The next word on the list – which Alex needed to spell correctly to win – was “tedious.” “Can you use that in a sentence?” Alex asked. “Spelling bees can be very tedious,” quipped Mr. Lapadot. Alex spelled the word correctly and was declared the champion.

Congratulations go to all the top spellers in their grades who qualified for the bee based on a written test. The other finalists in addition to Alex and Somers were fifth graders Karstan Minanov, Allison Mobley, Camille Ragland, Will Scarfone, Kate Van Pelt and Zachary Wood; sixth graders Dylan Demkowicz, Liam McIlroy, Giovanna Posselius, Steven Ragland, Gerard Smith and Chandler Warren; seventh graders Samantha Fitzpatrick, Grace Rentschler and Samantha Sternad; and eighth graders Taylor Bell, Madeline Miriani, Evan Schwartz and Emily Skau.