The Adult Spelling Bee
April 28, 2023 at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill from 7:00-8:30pm
Free & open to the public
Our spelling bees employ a tongue-in-cheek philosophy: you have been warned not to take this too seriously!
Want to test you spelling skills?
Apply to be a contestant!If you have questions please write Dr. Max Owre, Executive Director, at owre@email.unc.edu.
Details:
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the contest starts at 7:00. If you would like to compete in the bee, register ahead of time. Remaining open spots will be filled by random drawing at the venue, but be sure to arrive before 7 if you’d like a chance to compete!
All attendees are welcome to participate as individuals, and all contestants will be drawn by lot should more than 15 people pre-register, or if we do not have enough pre-registrants and need to pull from the audience (WARNING! We will have 15 competitors).
Individual competition (traditional spelling bee):
- Interested competitors must complete the registration form (available soon!)
- Fifteen competitors will be announced 6:45 pm
- No electronic devices may be brought to the stage
- Contest is single-error elimination
- Contestants will have approximately one minute with each word, of which 30 seconds is timed
- The judge will read the word, give its definition, then use it in a sentence
- Once the judge finishes, the timer will put 30 seconds on the clock
- During this time, the contestant may ask the judges for derivation
- If contestants are in the middle of spelling at the end of 30 seconds, they will be allowed to finish at judge’s discretion
- Failure to start spelling at the end of 30 seconds will lead to elimination.
- Last person standing is the winner
- Prizes will be awarded to all contestants, with a grand prize going to the champion
- Judges may not know what they’re doing…but they’re getting better!