STATE CENTER – Inside Washington #4 on Main Street, retired teacher Julie Lang sat at the front desk in period-style garb, with papers bearing age-appropriate words to use for the annual Rose Festival One-Room Schoolhouse Spelling Bees.

“I come every year for the Rose Festival,” she said. “We do spelling bees every 15 minutes or half-hour, depending on how long they run. It’s a fun time.”

Anyone was allowed to join in on the spelling fun. Lang said a single competition could feature, for example, a 10-year-old, a 16-year-old and a 30-year old. So, that is where the age-appropriate word lists came into play.

The lists are different from the spelling bee lists Lang uses at Taylor #4 in Marshalltown, of which she is the director. For those competitions, she only uses words which would have been common in the time period of Taylor’s operation. For the Rose Festival, Lang uses more modern words.

“A speller’s word depends on the grade they just finished,” she said.

Lang believes the Rose Festival spelling bees have been held for at least the past 15 years. Thus, they tend to attract a fair amount of participants eager to showcase or test their spelling chops.

“The number of competitors varies from two to 20,” she said. “It depends on how many people are in here and willing to participate.”

As they stood in a line in front of the blackboard, Lang told them the rules. She was going to say each participant’s word, use it in a sentence and their task was to also say the word, spell it and repeat the word.

“You can’t repeat letters,” she said.

That last rule resulted in some of the participants’ losing the competition. If a speller missed a word, their wings were not automatically clipped. They were given a second chance.

The first competition featured six participants, ranging in age from fourth-grade to adult, and thus word difficulties. The first round featured words like “insect,” “canal” and “occasionally,” along with jokes and laughter from the spellers. The second round brought words such as “zone,” “rhubarb” and “cemetery,” the latter which resulted in the first elimination.

The bee was won by Grace Bergeson who successfully – also a word in the competition – spelled “pastrami.” She was able to choose her victory prize which Lang had brought, such as a small toy or trinket or some candy.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.