ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, September 26, 1996           TAG: 9609260048
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-9 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER 

WE'LL SEE FOR WHOM THE BEE TOLLS

"Floriferous," "caliginous," "suffumigate" ... oh, my.

Members of area businesses and service organizations will get a chance to show their spelling "acumen" Friday at the fourth annual Corporate Spelling Bee.

The public is invited to drop by and watch the participants "squirm" in their "bafflement" at Custom Catering on North Main Street from 9 a.m. to noon. It is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Montgomery County and will benefit Literacy Volunteers of the New River Valley and club service projects.

The club wants to raise $6,000, and Chip Worley, chairman for the event said it was nearing its goal as of Wednesday. Thirteen teams, including one from The Roanoke Times New River Valley Bureau, have paid $200 each to enter this year's bee. Other local businesses have made contributions.

The teams have been given a study book with more than 3,000 words - including those in quotation marks above - divided into first- round, intermediate and final word categories. First-round words include "bivouac," "scrumptious" and "weird." Second-round words are those like "cryptic," "ebullience," and "whitherward." The final, most difficult round includes "labyrinthine," "pseudosyllogism," and "whippoorwill."

The judges will be Bill Brown, Blacksburg's police chief; Ron Lemons, Christiansburg's police chief; and Joe Gorman, a Montgomery County Board of Supervisors member. The master of ceremonies is Johann Norstedt, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, who is noted for his "phonation" and ability to pronounce the words "competently."

Norstedt will be armed with the dictionary definitions of the words and sample sentences, though he said he may provide a local flavor to the sentences "if I can include the name of the Rotary Club" or a local person or place.

Norstedt allowed as to how he was a "precocious" child, doing well in grade-school bees.

"When I was a kid, I loved spelling bees. This is a labor of love for me."

LENGTH: Short :   44 lines