Third place speller

Today was the elementary school spelling bee. It started with the children on stage behind a curtain. As the curtain opened, the flag pole fell over and clonked Noah on the head. Noah was shaken, but with the students and parents watching, he fought back the tears. Noah lasted until the ninth round when there were only four students on the stage. Noah and one other student went out that round. The next round determined the winner. Noah was the third place speller for the school, but he had no smile for the camera. He claimed his head hurt and asked to come home because of the flagpole bonk. I think it had a lot more to do with the spelling bee than the flagpole, but he does have a lump on his head.

Noah is not a happy camper. I doubt if he’ll ever forget the word “cantata”.

7 thoughts on “Third place speller

  1. Yeah! Following in Uncle Stinky’s footsteps. I got second place in the school spelling bee when I was about his age. I mispelled “wagon” because the woman pronounced it “WAY-gawn”. I told Mom it was ok because I didn’t want to have to wear the bee costume the next year; I thought the winner had that duty.

  2. Way to go Noah!

    Now… for the record…

    Definition of cantata (noun)
    form: cantatas
    story set to music, to be sung by a chorus

    Examples of cantata
    The choral society sang the new cantata composed by its leader.

    Cantata? In the third frickin’ grade? Are they kidding me?

  3. Noah’s in the fifth grade but it was just as likely that the third grader would have gotten the word. There may have been first and second graders participating.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *