Splendid.
I have had that winning feeling many times, and it hasn't always been a contest. I just really like to do well, personally. But yes, I have many Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds under my belt. Everything we do is because of something else, so I'm going to attribute that to the McLean County Spelling Bee when I was eight.
My teacher selected me as one of the best spellers to go and represent our class. I wasn't going to let her down. And I wasn't about to let me down. I didn't care how any of those other kids placed, I just needed to do well. I even remember my Little House on the Prairie outfit I wore that day.
Made it to the semi-final round. Then the FINAL final round. The woman (I am pretty sure she was from Underwood) reading the words mispronounced "SPLENDED."
So that's how I spelled it.
And you can be darn sure that ever since, I have tried to not let myself fail at things because of other people's mispronunciations. There's a spelling bee movie coming out this month, and I hope it brings healing.
For further illustration, have you ever heard a small child pronounce "milk" by saying, "MELK"? It's probably not that Underwood woman's fault that she has that deep accent. I just truly believe in my heart that if you're going to run a Spelling Bee and influence the lives of kids, then pick someone to read the words who at least has buried their local dialect. Maybe a radio or television personality. Or a high school student in the speech and debate program. Yah sure, dontcha know.
Now, coming from North Dakota, relearning to talk by Charolette, my beloved most Texas-y Texas-Tawkin' speech therapist there is, and moved to New Jersey a year later, then back to Texas. And I can STILL spell S-P-L-E-N-D-I-D without a weird accent.
My spelling bee story was in 4th Grade. Me and Rebecca Gianna (one of the Gianna twins, the smartest kids ever!) were the last two left-- she got VISION and I got GRAFFITI. At the time, I was not a huge Led Zeppelin fan and had not yet listened to the album Physical Graffiti, so I had the little pencil on the piece of paper and thought HMM... it looks right like this: graffitti.
BBBBZZZZZZZZZZ!