I started school in 1962.  I didn’t go to kindergarten – it just hadn’t caught on yet where I came from. 

I can still remember that first day of first grade.  My mother walked me to my class that day.  I’d never really been away from her very much and when I had, my grandparents were always within earshot.

I cried that first day and probably for the next few days until I realized that this was my new life.  I was making friends and I was learning new things.  I could already read and write some but I soon found myself not only wanting to go to school but eager to do so.  I couldn’t wait for the next day to come.

I volunteered to do things like dusting the chalkboard erasers and erasing the chalkboard.  My hand was usually one of the first to go up whenever Miss Sula asked questions to the class.  I didn’t realize it until many years later but she was a really awesome teacher.  If I’d only been twenty years older at the time I’d probably have asked her out.

I breezed through first and second grade and my second grade teacher, Miss Kohler even suggested I skip third grade.  That was unheard of at the time so my mother decided against that.  Miss Kohler was a lifelong spinster and lived right across the street from the elementary school I attended.  She was already old when I first entered her class or at least she was old to a seven year old kid – but I did know she was definitely not like Miss Sula, the teacher I’d had the year before who was on her first teaching job. 

Anyway Miss Kohler was a great teacher too. She did it her whole life and never moved from that little house across from the school and passed away in her sleep when she was about ninety five years old.  I can still remember Halloween and trick or treating at her house.  The only person I have ever heard of that always, ALWAYS gave every kid two number two lead pencils, unsharpened of course because after all we were kids running from house to house wearing costumes and our favorite super hero or monster mask on our little faces.  It was one of those very special nights when we could pretty much be wild and crazy.

So I went to third grade as planned.  I voraciously attacked it.  Until now I had never received anything below an A in any subject.  I intended to keep my streak alive. 

Then one day the teacher asked all of us students to stand beside our desks.  We all did as told and were all looking around when she told us we were now going to have a test. 

She told us we were going to have something called a “spelling bee”. 

And so it began – my love for words.  I never really knew I had some sort of innate skill at being able to spell words, even words I’d never heard before, but before long I realized  I was onto something big – probably the biggest thing that had ever happened in my  young life.

Mrs. Cook began at the front of the room and since my last name begins with a ‘Y’, I was usually in the back of the room in most of my classes.  She began by asking each student to spell the word she called out.  If you were wrong you had to sit down.  By the time she got to me probably half of the class was already seated.

I correctly spelled my first word and she continued until all but three or four of us students were left standing and it went back and forth for a few rounds until it was down to me and a girl.  I heard Mrs. Cook call out the girl’s word.  I’d already been spelling every word in my head and I did with this one too, but the girl misspelled it. 

So Mrs. Cook asked me to spell that same word.  I got it correct because I had already spelled it in my head.  Then she asked me to spell one more word.  I got that one right too.  I was declared the winner of my first ever spelling bee.

Then we did the very same routine every day for the next week or so. The result was always the same – I was always the last student standing. 

Then Mrs. Cook announced that she had been preparing us for the annual school spelling bee.  All grades from third to sixth competed.  Our elementary school consisted of two classes of each grade one through six, so we had over 350 kids in our school.  Each class got to send the top two spellers to the big show that was a few weeks away.  I’d been telling my mom about what was happening for a long time and when I told her I was picked to be in the spelling bee as the best speller in my class, she was thrilled.

Mrs. Cook started sending me home with book after book of words I needed to practice on.  So for the next few weeks, my mother would quiz me on word after word – some she couldn’t even pronounce. I must’ve spelled ten thousand words again and again.  And unbelievably I was hardly ever wrong; I really did have a knack for words it seemed.

The big night arrived and all of us spellers were ushered into a holding room.  My mom, sisters, grandparents and some other relatives were all there and kept telling me to relax and stay calm – that I would do great and after all I was only in the third grade.  Most of the other kids were older and had more experience and education.   No one, including me, expected me to last very long in this competition.  But I soon found myself seated on the stage in the school auditorium with at least twenty other kids, older and bigger than me.  I’d never even been in the auditorium before. 

The principal, Mr. Kleiber was the host and would read the words we had to spell.  If we didn’t understand the word we could ask him to define it, whatever that meant, or ask him to use it in a sentence.   We third graders went first.  I was probably the fifth or sixth kid to stand, go to the microphone and wait for Mr. Kleiber to pronounce the word I was to spell. 

I quickly realized that there were a lot of really good spellers on that stage.  It went several rounds before the first kid made a mistake and had to return to their seat.  So on it went. 

The line of spellers was dwindling and I soon found myself and a fifth grade girl the last two students standing on that stage.

We went back and forth for several words and then finally she was asked to spell the word “suitable”.  As usual I’d been spelling every word in my head and knew how to spell this word.  She stumbled and spelled it “suitible”.

I thought then that I was dreaming.  How could a third grader out spell all of these older kids.  Then Mr. Kleiber said to her that he was sorry but that was incorrect.  He asked me to spell the same word.  I went to the microphone and said, “Suitable, S-U-I-T-A-B-L-E, Suitable.”  I’d spelled it correctly.  I could hear my mom in the audience breathing a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t over yet.

The principal said that was correct.  He went on to say that he was going to ask me to spell one more word and that if I spelled it correctly, I would be the spelling bee champion of A.D. Stowell School for the school year 1964-1965.

I was afraid to even breathe let alone look into the audience.  So I stood there and then Mr. Kleiber asked me to spell the next word.  I took my time, went to the microphone and spelled the word correctly.

I immediately began hearing everyone in the auditorium clapping their hands and cheering for me.

That was my first spelling bee championship beside the one in the classroom all of those weeks ago.  I was the first third grader to win the spelling bee championship at our school – I went on to win a few more over the next few years.

After it was over everyone congratulated me, even the fifth grade girl that was the runner up and then a little old lady I didn’t even know came up to me and told me how proud she was that I won.  She reached into her purse and dug around for a minute or so and then held her hand out to me.  My mom looked at me and told me it was ok. 

I took her hand and in it she had dug out of her purse a shiny dime.  She handed it to me and said, “You should be so proud.  You are going to do great things with your life.”  She turned and walked from the auditorium. 

I never saw her again, but will never forget the inspiration that simple gesture gave to me all those years ago.

Paul R. Yakes