QHRS students were graded in spelling every six-week period. We were issued a “speller”, which was a soft-cover textbook that had words that were appropriate to the grade level. There were exercises in it, too, but I cannot remember what they were like. Although I only glanced at these books, I don’t think that I ever got anything but an A in spelling in my eight years at QHRS.

We had spelling bees in class now and then. Since I almost certainly read as much or more than anyone else in the class, and I was extremely arrogant, I always expected to win. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I missed a word and had to sit down and resume making spitballs.

In the early part of 1961 (when I was in the seventh grade) an announcement was delivered over the intercom concerning the National Spelling Bee. QHRS was participating, and students from all grades were eligible. The way it worked was that two students from each class were allowed/required to go to Sr. Dominica’s office for a spell-down to determine the school champion. This “lucky” person would be allowed/required to go to Olathe, the county seat, for the championship of Johnson County, KS, the next step toward the national championship.

I don’t remember anything like this in any previous years. I think that 1961 was the first year.

The two seventh grade classes had a spelling bee to select our two representatives. I remember that it rapidly boiled down to five or six spellers. I was one; the others were all girls, most of whom were holding rosaries or holy medals. The eliminated boys manufactured ammunition. In the end Patty Lally and I were left standing. We were escorted to the principal’s office, where we stopped to glance at Dante’s words over the door: “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate“. We went in.

The final round held there was at once comical and intense. On the one hand there were first graders stumbling over one-syllable words. On the other hand the respected yet despised eighth graders were also there. Even so, they all fell before Patty and me. The pair of us traded correct renditions for a few rounds, and then I was presented with a conundrum, the word “tabernacle”.

Most people probably have never seen this word when it is not surrounded by “Mormon” and “Choir”. However, as an altar boy I knew precisely what a tabernacle was. Hundreds of times I had had a ringside seat¹ when Fr. Ryan or Fr. Finnerty opened the tabernacle to remove the wine and hosts that were about to transubstantiate into the body and blood of Christ. I also remembered the word being used in the Bible to describe the place in which the Israelites kept the Ark of the Covenant.

I definitely knew the letters that composed the word and the order. What I was uncertain of was whether the first letter was capitalized. I tried to visualize it with a small t, and it did not look right. So, I announced that the first letter was capital T. When I finished, the judges conferred for a minute or so before deciding that I was wrong. So, I left the office and walked down the hallway convinced that I had let down both my family and my gender.

Then someone came running out of the office to tell me that I must summon whatever hope remained in my soul and reenter Sr. Dominica’s lair. Needless to say, Patty spelled “tabernacle” correctly. I mean, the judges gave the game away when they took so long to make a decision. However, to win she needed to spell one more word, and she missed some embarrassingly easy word. I am not sure what it was. They asked me to spell it, and I did. Then I spelled another word correctly. So, I was declared the winner.

What did I win? Well, there was no trophy or even a certificate. I won a few broadsheet pages of newspaper that contained nothing but a very long list of somewhat obscure words. There was no guarantee that any of the words would be used in any subsequent contest, and words that were not on the list were also fair game.

I felt obligated to go over the list once or twice before the county championship in Olathe², but there was no context for any of the words, and I, mindful that most probably would never be used, was not about to look up every word on the list in a dictionary. So, I probably was not as prepared as the people who were really serious about this (or at least they were in the episode of Psych—season 1, episode 2).

I don’t remember too much about the county spelling bee. My mother drove me to Olathe. Nobody from QHRS was there. In fact, I don’t think that anyone besides parent-chauffeurs attended.

I spelled a handful of words correctly. About half the spellers had been eliminated when I missed a word. I don’t remember what the word was. I was not as competitive in those days as I became later. Maybe I had not tasted enough failure.

It surprises me that I cannot remember any spelling bees during my last year at QHRS. Maybe the school did not participate in the national contest that year.

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1. Actually, of course, I was always kneeling.

2. At the time Olathe was separated from the Johnson County suburbs by plenty of farmland. Now those farms are long gone. Olathe and the Shawnee Mission towns are contiguous. Our drive in 1961 was mostly on two-lane roads with fields on both sides. I-435 did not yet exist. The east-west street at the bottom of this map is 135th St. So, it was almost as far south of QHRS as the school was from the junction of the Kaw and Missouri Rivers.