Every year I get to be a judge at our regional spelling bee.
It’s my job to tell the kids they are correct or (sigh) incorrect. Telling them they are incorrect breaks my heart.
My boss is the Pronounciator which should keep him busy enough, but last year he kept usurping my job and telling the kids when they were right or wrong. I had to set him straight on who was in charge of bell ringing.
Two years ago, I kinda lost my attention span and missed the fact that a kid had spelled a word incorrectly. The other judges kept trying to get my attention.
I was afraid they would take my job away from me the next year, but they gave me another chance.
Tonight, my bell was busy. The words for the 7th and 8th graders were extremely hard. They went down like flies…..or bees
As a matter of fact they ALL went down on their first words so we had to bring them all back up again to start again.
Finally we were down to two. But when it looked like one of them was going to win, they would miss their second word and we would have to start all over again. Even the parents were rooting against their own kids…..anything to end this!
Finally, we declared a winner…..to a standing ovation!
Congrats to all! It was a long, but phun evening!
wayfaringandwanderlust 
If the boss was the “pronounciator” would that make you the “terminator”? The pronouncer has the propensity to be, at times, sesquipedalian! What’s up with the German bread, “stollen”? As if our region’s students’ knowledge extends beyond German Chocalate Cake. Was Chancellor Angela Merkel involved with the creation of the word list? Or did President Abedinejad have his evil hand in the inclusion of the word “bezoar,” a magical antidote to poison. Obviously, Vladimir Putin included the Russian word, “kovsh,” a drinking vessel. My Stolicnaya always tastes better when served in my kovsh! How I yearn for the days of yore when “bee words” were English sometimes sometimes from Latin! But in the end, Homer will always be the “caecum poetae”!!!
Given the misspelling of chocolate, it is a good thing the pronounciator was not a participator. Just got off the phone with an aggrieved parent whose daughter heard “psalter” rather than “sultan” and I replied with clear enunciation that she’ll have to take the issue up with the “terminator”…