Jul 21, 2014 |
-with-the-runners-up-in-the-spelling-bee.jpg?sfvrsn=2 "Dr. Matz (left) with the runners-up in the spelling bee")
A dusty west African trade wind would not blow Lauren Matz off the course she set for herself a year ago.
Spelling “harmattan” correctly, the longtime St. Bonaventure English professor captured the National Senior Spelling Bee July 12 in Knoxville, Tenn., avenging her second-place finish in the contest last summer.
Matz won $1,000, a trophy, and a Merriam-Webster visual dictionary.
Remarkably, as an eighth-grader at All Saints Roman Catholic School in Buffalo, 13-year-old Lauren Pringle (now Matz) finished second in the 1972 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
Fifteen seniors – age 50 and older – were designated bee finalists after a written exam eliminated nine other contestants. The written exam included 60 words and took 90 minutes to complete, she said.
In addition to the winning word, Matz correctly spelled (in order): “clayey,” “shalloon,” “tremolitic,” “spinneys,” “claqueur,” “chauffeuring,” “bodhran,” “iridescence,” “bobeche,” “sullage” and “Hmong.”
To read the story about Matz’s victory in Sunday’s Buffalo News, click here.
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