Irvington News

Spelling Bee Makes Fun-Filled Return to Town Hall Theater in Irvington

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February 3, 2025

By Jeff Wilson—

With friends like these, who needs tax revenue for the library’s special programs?

The Twelfth Community-Wide Spelling Bee, presented by Friends of the Irvington Library at Town Hall Theater on January 31 (after a five-year hiatus), nearly packed the house. With a game-show atmosphere hosted and “enunciated” with nonstop humor by actor-comedian Matt Rashid, the benefit event was a vocabulary/spelling-empowering laugh fest.

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As Friends President Sarah Harris-Weiss explained in the show’s introduction, her organization – a 501©(3) nonprofit – enables the library to go above and beyond the standard offerings of that institution. According to the Spelling Bee’s playbill, “The Friends provides all of the funding for the library’s adult and children’s programming, including the blockbuster youth summer reading program, lessons with a master chess coach, movie afternoons for seniors, knitting, yoga, music performances, and lectures. And even passes to stellar New York museums.”

Rules of the contest: 12 three-member teams were divided into four rounds of three-team matches onstage and challenged by Rashid to spell seven words. The enunciator would speak the word, give its etymology (roots/national origin), define the word and use it in a sentence, often with comical observations or examples. After 25 seconds of consultation, each team would hold up a whiteboard with its spelling attempt while a hostess would cross the stage displaying the “master” whiteboard emblazoned with the correctly spelled word.

The audience reacted to the proceedings with hoots, groans, laughter and applause, while a panel of judges tallied the scores to determine which four teams would advance to the final championship round.

The Spelling Bee’s organizers and participants used the bee theme in any pun they could conjure up. Most of the spellers who’d signed up, including Mayor Jon Siegel and his family, wore party-costume headpieces with wire bee antennae, and teams sported names like Buzzness Casual, The Bee Team, Human Bee-ings, BuzzSaws and No Bees Like Show Bees.

Now for some bee words…. readers of this article who want to play along – as the audience was able to do on blank pages in their playbills – can simply share their devices with a family member, friend or friendly stranger and have them “enounce” the following words: valance, carburetor, sybaritic, indict, daiquiri, passel, bivouac, visibility, sphagnum, spontaneity, picayune, fuchsia, chignon. (For etymology and definition, consult the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.)

And the winners? Humble Bee, the Picon family of Christian, Dominique and Alice, who knocked out the competition on the second word in the final round: deliquesce. The victorious Picons took home medals and, like all the finalists, jars of honey from Buzz Riot Apiaries, a project of Irvington residents Ed and Amy Chen, who served as the scorekeepers.

“I didn’t expect to win, and I also didn’t expect it to be so much fun,” said Alice Picon in a telephone interview. “I had a great time.”

When asked if there was anything her team had misspelled, she confessed to one word: carburetor. (Reader, can you spell Huh?)

The Main Street School Bee winners were fourth-graders Elena Bugaj and Henry Honstein, while Willliam Gibbons and Mason Foster took the fifth-grade honors. But not every winner was a speller. There were also raffles, whose prizes were free or discounted products and services from local businesses.

Besides annual spelling bees, Friends also raises funds for the library through twice-yearly used book sales and an audience-participation murder mystery at the theater.

Friends Communications Director Matt Lowenbraun was asked how much money the bee raised. “We’re still calculating; attendance was around 300. But the main goal of this event has always been community building. Community support, financially and socially, is vital to ensuring that the library’s programming can flourish in the future. We believe we met that goal.”

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