By: Margot Dragos
The Interns of the English Majors’ Counseling Office, also known as the Riverrun Club, challenged students to spell tricky words for special prizes at the first annual Riverrun Spelling Bee on Nov. 20.
The event was held in Boylan Hall, Room 2412, and hosted by three English department interns, who came dressed to impress in suit jackets and ties.
One of the hosts, senior intern Matthew Faltas, expressed their excitement about hosting the event alongside two fellow interns.
“I was really happy to host this event because in my previous semester, we never got to do anything like this, and it felt good to be involved and help guide our community together.”
The rules of the bee were similar to traditional spelling bee competitions. Each speller would be given a word by the hosts and attempt to spell it. The contestants would follow by spelling the word provided to them, and the hosts would tally whether or not the contestant spelled it correctly. This tally was done privately on flashcards to avoid revealing to the next speller whether the word was correctly spelled or not.
Seven contestants were competing in the bee: Angelina, Sawsan, Winnie, Julian, Miguel, Christopher, and Jonlison, who were assigned numbers 1-7, respectively.
Each speller was allowed to ask for a definition and example of the word in a sentence. The interns hosting the event would tally up the ones spellers would get right, and the spellers with the most correct answers would move on to the next round.
The first round contained the easiest words of the competition, but they still posed a challenge.
Contestants were challenged to spell words such as abrasion, hippopotamus, and delicatessen. The audience would frequently clap and cheer spellers on after each word, even though it wasn’t announced if that spelling was correct.
After a brief break for the hosts to tally up the scores, the second round began with the four top spellers advancing: Lambros, Sawsan, Winnie, and Figueroa.
As the pool of spellers got smaller, the words got harder. The remaining spellers were challenged with words such as lackadaisical, abecedarian, and logorrhea.
Finally, the top two spellers, Lambros and Figueroa, advanced to the final sudden-death round. Both attempted to spell words such as onomatopoeia, ecclesiology, and neurosis. The hosts finalized the tally and announced the winners.
Sawsan came in third place and received a Merriam-Webster dictionary. Lambros came in second and was given a mug that read “doing my bee,” to remain on-theme for the spelling bee. Figueroa won the first-place prize, which was a notebook and a set of pens. Each winner was also given a ribbon corresponding to their placement.
“I think a lot of people had a great time,” said Ivy Allick, one of the English department interns hosting the event. “I definitely want to do it next year. I really hope the next interns continue on and it becomes a tradition.”
Students interested in future events hosted by the Riverrun Club should follow @thejunctionbc on Instagram.