A spelling battle of the generations

About a month ago, La Conner Retirement Inn Activities Director BJ Johnson grabbed a nearby dictionary on a whim after she had an idea to put the residents’ spelling skills to the test.

“I was throwing words out there and they were spelling them all,” Johnson said. “I said, ‘my gosh, we’ve got to do something with this.’”

She asked the seniors if they would be up for a friendly spelling competition with any interested youngsters at the La Conner School District. The residents loved the idea, Johnson said.

On Monday, a dozen high school and middle school students walked down to the Inn to participate in the battle of the generations.

The room was filled with residents who came to see the spelling bee, and each participant was given 30 seconds to spell their word. Instead of a typical “last person standing” spelling bee, each team-member was called upon to score a point for their team if they got their word correctly.

All types of words came up, including “suede,” “jaundice,” “monarch,” and “refugee.”

At times, the age gap between the youth and the elderly was highlighted by the random selection of “modern” and “traditional” words. But 100-year old Trudy Newton wasn’t stumped by her computer word, “cursor.”

As the oldest participant on the resident’s team, Newton was born in 1917. The youngest on the student’s side was born in 2006.

The residents won, with Johnson’s tally count at 30 to 19, but the students will have another chance to challenge their elders in the fall, she said.

“It just goes to show, life experience makes a difference,” school counselor Lori Buher said.

Residents Jackie Engebretson and Buttons La Marche agreed that age works in their favor when it comes to spelling, especially because they grew up in an era without spell-check and autocorrect.

“When you learn something, you hold onto it,” Engebretson said. “Our vocabulary should be longer than theirs.”

“It’s becoming a lost art,” La Marche added.

Johnson said the residents gave her great feedback after the competition finished and were impressed that the students weren’t nervous.

“I think there’s a certain amount of pride, too, being able to pull this off. It’s like ‘we still have it, we can still do it,” Johnson said.

“The residents competing with the school-age kids is a really positive experience,” she said.

Champion speller Charity Jordan was among the students participating. The La Conner seventh-grader has won the Skagit Regional Spelling Bee two years in a row and for the second time, will be on her way to the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C next month.