By Marci Piltz
Record-Courier staff writer
Not even an anthropophagous gnu could quell the excitement of defending champions from the Record-Courier team as they blew the competition to smithereens Friday in the 17th Annual Community Spelling Bee for Literacy.
"You three are never quitting," joked Roger J. Di Paolo, editor of the Record-Courier, as he presented winning team members Dave O'Brien, Mary Louise Ruehr and Matt Fredmonsky with the plaque marking the team's third consecutive win.
Although the competition had some fairly common words -- such as keen, vertex, peck and mosque -- some left members of all five spelling teams as well as the audience with confused stares on their faces.
Among them: douane (from Arabic, meaning a customhouse); hippophagous (an eater of horse meat); costermonger (one who sells fruits, vegetables, fish or other goods from a cart in the streets); and cankery (full of infection).
Still confused even after reading the definitions? You wouldn't be the only one.
When Brian Cox, the last man standing for the Deluxe Business Systems team, was asked to spell "coffle" -- a group of animals, prisoners or slaves chained together -- Cox joked with guest judges Portage County Auditor Janet Esposito, Commissioner Maureen Frederick and County Recorder Bonnie Howe.
"Could you please use that in a sentence... or maybe two?" he asked.
The first round of the bee, consisting of one word for each team from eight different categories, ended with four of the five teams remaining. Of those, two had only one member each left while the other two had two remaining members.
Round two kept the audience entertained as well, as NEOUCOM team member Reema Mallick was asked to spell "heifer." After an incorrect response of 'h-e-i-f-f-e-r,' Esposito, who was raised on a farm, joked as Mallick left the stage, "City girl!"
As the event wound down and found only two competitors remaining -- O'Brien from the Record-Courier team and Debbie Myers of NEOUCOM -- the laughs continued to come.
Phyllis Cettomai, retired director of Reed Memorial Library in Ravenna and "keeper" of the bee words, extended the competition by accidentally correcting incorrect spellings by O'Brien and Myers. The rules allow for the other remaining competitor to spell the incorrectly spelled word.
Once Cettomai finally restrained herself, O'Brien asked judges for the origin of the word "chevelure," Esposito said the origin was not listed in the dictionary with the word's definition.
"Unless I'm looking at the wrong word," she said. "Chevelure, right? C-h-e-v-..." she proceeded as the crowd erupted in laughter.
At that point, the two finalists conceded to try and end the competition with a tie-breaker round consisting of 10 words from the category of Egyptian and Celtic mythology.
Unfortunately, they both spelled only one word correctly -- Apophis, a figure from Egyptian mythology -- and one more attempt was made at spelling a final word aloud.
After Myers missed her word, it was O'Brien's turn to attempt spelling "anthropophagous." After spelling that correctly, he then received the final and winning word: "mistletoe."
This is the third year in a row the trio from the Record-Courier has taken first place in the event. Placing second this year was NEOUCOM's team, followed by third-place winner Davey Tree Expert Co.
The annual literacy bee is co-sponsored by the Record-Courier and the Portage County Literacy Coalition. Friday's event was held at the Ralph Regula Conference Center at NEOUCOM in Rootstown.