Getting Wild On A Friday Night, My First Adult Spelling Bee

I can say this was this first time I studied for a Friday night out.

The first annual Farmington Public Schools Foundation Spelling Bee was held at the Sarah Porter Memorial Friday May 11 to help raise money for the Foundation’s grant program. Myself and FoxCT meteorologists Joe Furey and Geoff Fox gave it a go as the FoxCT Anchor Bees.

The prize (aside from pride and bragging rights)

We always make the kids do it, so why not have the adults give it a shot too, right? The format was a little different, each team of three got 30 seconds to spell the word as a group on their white board then submit it to the panel of judges. Each round, or “swarm,” featured three to five teams, and the final team standing from each swarm made it to the finals. Length of each round depended on how long it took to go from five teams to one.

I was so thankful to find out we were competing as a team so the nightmares of myself alone on a dark stage, a single spotlight and a microphone, spelling “arachnophobia” unsuccessfully…in my underwear…could stop.

Sadly we did not win our swarm, but we did have a great time, it wasn’t nearly as scary as I expected! The night also featured a barbecue buffet courtesy of Flaggstead Smokehouse, a silent auctions, and some teams even played around and posed with the trophy before things got competitive.

Patti Ellett, Ellie Weinberg and Stacey Fresher

The best part? The room was packed to all ends with people all there to help raise money for Farmington Public Schools. I’ll be studying up for the next time!