I attended my first state spelling bee Friday afternoon in West Valley City at the Hale Centre Theatre. For starters, I thought the location was kind of ironic.
Holding a spelling bee in a place that doesn't know how to spell "Center."
Inside were 46 of the smartest spellers in Utah, representing the b-e-s-t from virtually every public and private school district in the state.
The Deseret News has been sponsoring these spelling bees for a quarter of a century now — all done in a spirit of community togetherness and in the hopes that future journalists might spell better than I do.
The words started out easy and got harder. Just like life.
After every round, another six to eight hopefuls were eliminated. Just like life.
And every time they were ousted, the contestants packed up their bags, their books, their parents and their grandparents and headed to the restaurant next door to drown their sorrows in a big, tall milkshake. Just like life.
I quickly adopted a favorite.
His name was Mohammad Torabinejad, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Mount Logan Middle School in Logan.
My guess was he made it through district qualifying by correctly spelling his last name.
I liked the way Mohammad carried himself as he fairly flew through the first four rounds, making it to the final 18 without breathing hard.
In the fourth round, as the words got more difficult, he spelled "kestrel" as if it was something he did every morning, like combing his hair.
Mohammad's father, Javad, was cheering his son on in the stands while taking time off from research at Utah State University, where Javad is a postdoctorate fellow in USU's department of biology. An Iranian native, Javad came to America, and Logan, to study in the late '70s and has made it his home.
Around their house, the Torabinejads speak both English and Farsi — their native tongue.
If they'd wanted him to, Mohammad could have taken a crack at "kestrel" in Farsi as well.
I asked Mohammad his secret at spelling. He said he reads a lot — Harry Potter is a personal favorite — and when he doesn't know a word, he looks it up.
Alas, Mohammad went out in the fifth round on the word "molinary."
He spelled it "m-o-l-e-n-a-r-y."
Unlike most of the others, however, Mohammad and his father did not leave the arena. Nor — unlike a few in Friday's crowd — did they question the way Doug Fabrizio, the official word pronouncer, enunciated the word.
They stayed in their seats and watched the competition to its conclusion.
I say, give them the sportsmanship trophy, along with the entire Harry Potter collection.
They didn't have to wait long. Less than half an hour later they were watching 13-year-old Jenni Matthews successfully spell the word that brought her the 2001 state title: "o-s-t-i-u-m."
And that spelled an expense-paid trip for two to the national finals in Washington, D.C.
And wouldn't you know it, just like with Mohammad, it was deciding between an "e" and and "i" that made all the difference.
Jenni knew ostium either had an i or an e — the rest was easy — so she asked Fabrizio to tell her the word's language of origin. He said it was Spanish.
"In Spanish, the i takes an e sound," explained Jenni. "So I decided it must be an i. Luckily, I'm studying Spanish."
With that, she and her trophy, along with her parents and grandparents, were outta there, looking for a milkshake.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.