Published in the March 8, 2017 edition
WINNERS OF THE INAUGURAL Wakefield Educational Foundation Adult Spelling Bee last Friday were the Don’t Stop BEElievers.
WAKEFIELD — The Crystal Community Club was buzzing on Friday night when the Wakefield Educational Foundation hosted their First Adult Spelling Bee.
They had a full house of enthusiastic bee and spelling themed teams including Don’t Stop BEElievers, the Un-BEE-lievables, Good Spellahs and Must Bee the Honeys.
Jen Theriault from the WEF Board of Directors was the Bee Committee chair who coordinated the event with the help of a team of WEF worker bees.
“It was an amazing night, a true community event,” she said. “Our committee was overwhelmed with such an incredible turnout and everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves. The planning group is already looking forward to brainstorming on our 2018 event. We would like to thank everyone who came out to support our fundraiser.”
Andrew Tetrault, Galvin Middle School vice principal, was the emcee and played a key role in facilitating the event and energizing the crowd. He followed a script of 10 rounds of 10 words each. He added his own style and humor to the presentation and he kept the crowd entertained and engaged even when the words were more challenging. Each round had a different theme and there were varied categories that at least someone on every team had background knowledge in. Some of the rounds included: commonly misspelled words, names of sports figures, dog breeds, educational acronyms, 80s Music, legal terms and texting acronyms.
Mike Hartin was the DJ and worked with Mr. Tetrault to keep the crowd entertained and provided music throughout the evening, which was especially appreciated during the 80s music spelling round.
Along with bragging rights, the team with the most points won a bobble head bee trophy and each walked away with a jar of BeeBee library honey. The winning team were the Don’t Stop BEElievers! The team that placed last was also recognized and crowned with bee antennae. This team was a group of women who met for the first time at the Bee… they found each other on the Wakefield Moms Facebook page.
They used the Bee as an opportunity to meet some other fun loving spelling Moms. They called themselves “Because I said So.”
According to Elizabeth Russell, President of WEF, the evening was a huge success. “We met our fundraising goals and at the same time we facilitated a wonderful community event. We appreciated all the support from the Wakefield community and from the schools. We appreciated that the School Committee formed a team and that our Superintendent, Dr. Kim Smith and our Assistant Superintendent, Mr. Doug Lyons, also took part.”
The Wakefield Educational Foundation funds enrichment programs in every school in the district. Without WEF funding these programs wouldn’t be possible. This school year, WEF funded $24,000 in grants to support programs such as Lively Letters at the Doyle, Artist in Residency Program at the Walton, Google Expeditions Kits and Outdoor Science Classroom at the Greenwood, Writing Tool Kit Texts at the Woodville, Museum of Science Traveling Programs at the Dolbeare, Creative Coding with Tynker at the Galvin and Digital Illustration Drawing Tablets at WMHS to name a few. For more information about WEF please visit the website at www.wakefieldeducationalfoundation.org.
