Most times we think of Spelling Bee our mind goes to 10-12 year-olds battling over words in the competition staged, for years now, by the Gleaner Co. But there is also a Spelling Bee competition for elders and the Nationals finals of the latest edition was won last week by a woman from St Mary.
D-O-D-E-C-A-H-E-D-R-O-N, meaning a three-dimensional figure having 12 faces that are pentagonal in shape, was the winning word spelled by 72-year-old Olga Williams of St. Mary to win the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC)18th National Seniors Spelling Bee Competition.
Ms. Williams was among 13 parish finalists who converged at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in St. Andrew on Thursday, September 22, to match spelling skills in rounds of nail-biting competition, that lasted well over six hours.
JIS reported that spell master, Dervan Malcolm, asked senior citizens, one-at-a-time, to spell a specific word out loud, with the spellers eliminated for misspelling.
In the end, the soft-spoken Ms. Williams, who was poised throughout the rounds, was the deserving winner.
She took on word after word with a calm yet unhesitant demeanor. This was her fifth time entering the contest.
In second place was Trelawny’s Lenworth Wright, the comical and worthy opponent whose antics kept the virtual and in-person audience quite amused, with St. Andrew’s Marie Purcell placing third.
Eighty-three-year-old Evan Grey of Portland was the oldest competitor.
The winner and two runners-up received trophies, gift baskets and Konoko Falls gift certificates, courtesy of the NCSC.
Executive Director, Cassandra Morrison, said that the contest allowed the seniors to showcase “their intellectual prowess, their commitment, their work ethic and their value to Jamaica”.
An entity of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the NCSC hosts the spelling competition as part of activities for Senior Citizens Month, which is celebrated annually in September, JIS reported.
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St. Mary’s Olga Williams is the winner of the National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC) 2022 Spelling Bee Competition. The 72-year-old triumphed over 12 other parish finalists during the competition held in St. Andrew on Thursday, September 22.
Winner of the 2022 National Council for Senior Citizens (NCSC) Spelling Bee Competition, St. Mary’s Olga Williams (centre) is flanked by Trelawny’s Lenworth Wright (left), who placed second, and third-place Marie Purcell from St. Andrew. The competition was held in St. Andrew on Thursday, September 22.
