Brian Kiehl says he expects things will be hunky-dory for the 2026 Monongalia County Schools Spelling Bee, which takes off Jan. 21 at the district’s central offices in Sabraton.
“Yes, it’s time once again,” said Kiehl, a district administrator who has been organizing the county bees since right before the pandemic. “Doesn’t take long for them to come back around.”
The bee has been coming around in the U.S. for 101 years now. A Kentucky newspaper launched an official competition for lexicon-minded youngsters in the Bluegrass State in 1925, and the bee has built and built ever since.
Mon’s spellers, meanwhile, have taken on the abovementioned “hunky-dory” in recent bees.
If you’re wondering, that word has its origins in Dutch and basically means that all is well. Celebrating that diversity of language has long been the spelled mission of the bee.
Attend one and you’ll hear it and others, too, such as “kurta,” “calamitous,” “diaphoresis” and “ichor” – you know, the ethereal stuff taking the place of blood in the veins of the gods of Greek mythology.
Don’t forget “babushka” – which famously reduced one Mon competitor to a 90-second giggling fit, before he recovered to spell it correctly.
To date, there are more than 1 million words in the English dictionary, owing their origins to the aforementioned Dutch, plus Latin and Old English. French and even Yiddish, too.
Now, the bee is a bona fide national happening. Winners from Mon’s upcoming bee will compete for a slot in national finals, held every spring.
Joe Paull, the late educator and community organizer, pronounced words at Mon’s bees for more than 30 years.
Spelling bees help with reading fluency, he long contended.
There’s the etymology, history, anthropology and sociology of it all, he’d continue – all in one word.
No spellchecker or auto-correct, either.
Spellers, he’d say, might be better served having ice water in their veins rather than ichor.
“Think about that: You’re in the arena, in front of a lot of people you don’t know, doing something that’s not always easy to do.”
