PBSC team shows spelling chops at local contest
The best and brightest local spellers, including Palm Beach State College staff and faculty members Dr. Becky Mercer, Allen Webber and Cheryl Zimmerman, joined 19 other teams of three last night at the Harriet Himmel Theater in West Palm Beach to vie for the first place title in the annual Great Grown Up Spelling Bee.
The event, sponsored by Legal You and emceed by Jon Shainman of WPTV Newschannel 5, challenged participants mentally but allowed them to also have some fun while supporting The Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County.
The team finished well, earning second place. Duffy’s Sports Grill All-Stars finished first and NextEra Energy Resources third. Serving as the pronouncer of words was PBSC faculty member Mike Sfiropoulos. PBSC Associate Dean Robert Gingras serves on the Coalition’s board of directors and Professor Luli Marx was a judge.
The PBSC team successfully handled the words buffalo, tortoise, acme, deign, morose, quell, irascible, gourami, strontium, interregnum, eviscerate, lachrymal, bdellium, aerogramme, diaphanous, autocephalous, pachyderm, halophyte, adjuvant, calyx and luculent. The team lost in round 22 on “abranchiate.”
Mercer is the Biotechnology Program and STEM education director on the Palm Beach Gardens campus. Webber is a music professor and Zimmerman a learning specialist both at the Lake Worth campus.
In the last eight years, the PBSC team has finished second twice and first twice.
