Can you spell, Ikolaba?

On Wednesday, I organised a spelling bee (competition) at Ikolaba High School.

The thought crept into my head on tuesday and I decided to give it a shot. It happened that I had already finished marking scripts and was pretty jobless. The students too.

So I told the VP (on wednesday), who directed me, at once, to the Principal. No sooner had I told the principal of my idea and of the prizes, than she jumped at it. Next thing I knew, we went out (’cause it was already time for assembly) and there was an announcement: “One of our Dynamic and ever-active corpers, corper Dolapo, has decided to organise a spelling bee for our senior secondary students oh. You see he is already a philanthropist in the making”, an announcement which was stifled by rapturous applause.
And it was fixed right there and then. LOL.
“The venue is the school hall, and it is taking place at 11am. First prize is N2000, 2nd Prize- N1000, and 3rd prise, 500. There will also be consolation prizes.”

It was all too fast. Thank God I had already made plans and I had prepared a word-list of about 700 words.

With the help of some students, I was able to set up the place and get everything ready before 11. At the set time though, only about 10 students showed up. I was dazed. Didn’t anyone want to win money? It turned out they were more interested in the football match. I hadn’t thought about that.

Luckily, the match ended at 11:30am, and when it was over, everyone decided that the spelling bee was the next centre of attraction so we got even more people than anticipated. About 250 people showed up with about 100 of those wrote their names on their list of participants. I was assisted by Dare and Jamiu, fellow corp members, and the two School I VPs also graced the event.

The event was in different stages. Initially, you got called according to what number your name was on the list and you had to select a number from 1 – 490 and spell the word you got. People passed this stage very quickly because the words were quite easy. They had to spell words like: Technical, Teeth, Yolk, Weight and so on. They didn’t know I was only trying to be nice. Na so e easy to win money 😀

The next stages were not so easy. We finally made our way from the initial 100 students, through five stages of increasing difficulty, to 4 finalists. At this point I was rooting for the headgirl of School I (where I serve) because she never had to correct herself -not even once- while spelling in the previous stages. The finalists had to spell words like: Demagoguery, Triskadekaphobia, Ampullaceous, Daguerreotype, Ichthyophagist and so on, to clinch the prize.

If you’re surprised that an Ikolaba High School student could spell any of those words, you’re not alone. An underdog, this unknown guy from commercial class in SS3 (School I) ended up winning. Second and Third positions went to two girls from School II, who, though weren’t invited, decided to do ‘mogbo-moya’.
My dear headgirl came fourth. But she tried so well that I had to give her something. Guess she just had tough luck choosing only the hardest words.

I also gave consolation prizes such as exercise books, pens and so on, to some students depending on what stage they got to.

I’m really sorry there are no pics as I didn’t plan to post this initially and I only did this as an after-thought. However, if I’m able to get pics from some of the people present I will update later.

Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the post. Please leave your comments. 🙂