Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

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Dan Casey

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Let's play a short round of "Jeopardy" today.

The answer is, "a shooting match: an entertainment or a picnic where marksmanship is practiced."

The correct question is, "What is a schuetzenfest?"

That actually is a word in the English language.

If you couldn't come anywhere close to spelling it correctly, join the club.

Even after hearing the definition, and learning that it comes from a German word, and listening to it used correctly in a sentence, I couldn't get far beyond the first letter.

Many readers of this newspaper would probably be in the same boat.

But there are some ace spellers among us.

Saturday morning, the cream of the scholastic spelling crop in our region will gather in a hotel banquet room in Roanoke. They are 19 elementary and middle schoolers who can spell almost all the ordinary words, plus many of the arcane ones like schuetzenfest.

The occasion is The Roanoke Times 37th annual Spelling Bee, and there, those students will represent their school districts in the region known as Timesland.

It stretches from Bath County in the north all the way down to Smyth County in far Southwest Virginia and east into Bedford County.

Today, we give these young spelling mavens a big round of applause, and a hefty dose of admiration.

They may not be champion wrestlers, but you will never find them misspelling that word as "w-r-a-s-s-l-e-r-s" or any of the other ways you can screw it up.

(No offense intended, wrestlers).

They are champions of the alphabet, of context and derivation. The dictionary is to them is what a basketball is to Michael Jordan.

It's not easy to win a place in the regional bee.

The 19 district champions were culled from 120 school spelling bees in Timesland.

After winning their own school's bee, they competed against spelling champions from other schools in their district. Some of those districts had as few as two competing schools. But in some the competition was fierce.

Let us consider Maha Ali, 11, the Roanoke County Public Schools champion.

The fifth-grader won her Penn Forest Elementary classroom bee Jan. 6, which was held right after a long Christmas break.

Then she won the school's bee on Jan. 20, said her language arts teacher, Kristi Sumpter.

That took Maha to the district spelling bee Feb. 16 at Glenvar Middle School.

There she beat 21 other students from Roanoke County schools, including five middle schoolers.

"She was just amazing," said Joe LeGault, coordinator for English in Roanoke County Public Schools. "She showed no fear at our district bee. She was surrounded by kids that were taller than her and she stepped up to the microphone without any nervousness."

Maha's district-winning word was "enfranchise."

Tuesday night, the little girl was hard at work preparing for Saturday's contest, Sumpter said. As with other recent nights, her parents helped by calling out 200 words for Maha to spell.

It's good that Maha is preparing, because Saturday's competition will be a tough one.

I've been the pronouncer (and sometimes, the mispronouncer) at the regional bee in recent years, and it is no cakewalk. I'll be doing it again Saturday morning. Judges Vernon and Patricia Jordahl will help keep me straight.

The spellers sit on a stage, in a hushed room crowded with family and supporters. One by one, they walk to a microphone up front and stand there alone to spell one challenging word after another.

The early rounds tend to feature familiar words, but nerves are evident even then.

The tension always heats up in the later rounds, when fewer spellers are left and some incredibly difficult to spell (and pronounce) words turn up.

It's amazing to witness these 10- to 13-year-olds spelling those words correctly, and it's crushing when they miss them.

The champion goes on to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which starts May 31 in Washington. That trip, plus some spending money, is provided by this newspaper.

The regional bee Saturday is open to the public, so you can witness this exciting showcase of academic excellence for yourself.

District spelling champions, congratulations.

May the best speller win.