The $1,000 Word

From the underbrush of words that everyone knows but not everyone can spell (weird, harass), the 31st Annual National Spelling Bee had progressed to the dark, scary forest of such growths as distichous, objurgation, ephelis, abatis and coulisse, that few can spell and few, least of all the handful of youngsters still competing in the ballroom of Washington's Sheraton-Park Hotel, can translate into everyday English. In the second day and the 19th round of the spelldown, 13-year-old Betty Morgan, whose horn-blowing, flag-waving claque from Washington's St. Thomas Apostle School had cheered her through spinosity, serriform and caliginous, choked up on chiaus. Only four spellers were left: Stanley A. Schmidt, 14, entrant of the Cincinnati Post and station WCPO (each contestant was escorted by a markedly unobjective newsman from his home-town paper); Terry Madeira, 13, Harrisburg Patriot and News; Tina Strauss, 13, Pittsburgh Press: and 14-year-old Jolitta Schlehuber, Topeka Capital.

For two more rounds and part of a third, they fought without faltering through such helter-spellers as recalesce, baccivorous and jardiniere. Then Jolitta, hearing dissyllabic correctly pronounced with a short i in the first syllable, asked if it could be pronounced "dye . . ." That pronunciation was wrong, but she was told to go ahead. When she misspelled the word (only one s). judges decided that she had been misled. Jolitta was allowed to try Quincunx. She spelled it, and, in spite of protests from Pittsburgh Pressman Joe Williams, Tina's escort, the deadlock continued. .

In the 24th round, Terry stumbled on another pronunciation tangle, correctly spelled her substitute word. A round later, Tina failed on soubise. Chance for a male uprising--no boy has won since 1954--ended in the 26th round when Stanley splashed into canaliculus. Jolitta, blonde, scrubbed, and pretty in a pink cotton dress that she made herself, easily tobogganed through pogamoggan and rigescent. Terry spelled coruscant and sirocco with no trouble.

Then Terry spelled propylaeum as "pro-pileum." Confidently, just as if she knew that the word means a vestibule or entrance, Jolitta spelled it correctly, then topped it off with syllepsis (the use of a word to modify two or more others, only one of which it agrees with in gender, number, etc.). Prize for Terry Madeira, an eighth-grader at Elizabethtown (Pa.) Junior High School: $500. For Jolitta. an eighth-grader at Harmony Rural School in McPherson, Kans., who studies spelling with her schoolteacher mother, plans to become a missionary, use most of the money for her education: $1,000.

Kudos

Boston College Jacques Maritain, philosopher and teacher LL.D.

Raissa Maritain, philosopher. . . LL.D.

Barnaby C. Keeney, president, Brown University LL.D.

Boston University Sol Hurok, impresario L.H.D.

Citation: "Whose name is synonymous with the supreme in art, opera, ballet, theater."

Bowdoin College William Zorach, sculptor M.A.

Bradley University Roy Edward Larsen, president, Time Inc Litt.D. in Journalism Charles Kettering, inventor Sc.D.

Citation: "Noted throughout his career for undertaking and solving problems deemed insolvable by many. . . " Chapman College Leslie LeRoy Irvin, inventor of the rip-cord-opened parachute LL.D.

College of the Holy Cross General Alfred M. Gruenther, president, American Red Cross Sc.D.

Emerson College Joseph Nye Welch, the Army's attorney in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings Litt.D.

Citation: "You have challenged demagoguery in high places . . . exposed . . . the and subtle cherished threats to liberties our . . ." national freedom Georgetown University John Joseph Hearne, Irish Ambassador to the U.S L.H.D.

Citation: "A most upright and conscientious gentleman, one in whom, as the orator Cicero said of another, there appears the embodiment of culture, of gentle wit, of amiability and of charm." Harvard University Hans Bethe, physicist . Sc.D.

Citation: "A distinguished contributor to modern physical theory, a forthright expositor of the public implications of science." Nadia Boulanger, composer, conductor and teacher Mus.D.

Eleanor Touroff Glueck, research criminologist Sc.D.

Sheldon Glueck, criminologist and teacher of law Sc.D.

General Alfred M. Gruenther, president, American Red Cross LL.D.

Wallace K. Harrison, architect for U.N.

headquarters D.Arts Neil H. McElroy, Secretary of Defense LL.D.

Johns Hopkins University Dwight D. Eisenhower LL.D.

Maurice Harold Macmillan, Prime Min ister of Great Britain. . . .LL.D.

Loyola University of Los Angeles

Irene Dunne, actress, alternate U.N.

delegate LL.D.

Oberlin College Harry Scott Ashmore. Pulitzer prize-winning editor, Little Rock's Arkansas Gazette LL.D.

Citation: "Patriot of the press, courageous champion of civil rights, prophet of the new South, voice of our new republic, with liberty and justice for all." Aaron Copland, composer Mus.D.

Occidental College Clark Kerr, incoming president. University of California LL.D.

St. Lawrence University Kirk Douglas, actor. . . D.F.A.

Citation: "You had to earn your way through college as a waiter in the Men's Residence dining hall . . . Your success up to that point and since may be cred ited not only to the beckoning opportunities which the American way of life provides but also to the dynamic quality of personal development which strives for the summit of a chosen career." Stevens Institute of Technology Rear Admiral Hyman George Rickover, developer of the atomic sub marine Sc.D.

University of California Theodor Heuss, President of West Germany LL.D.

University of Michigan Theodor Heuss, President of West Germany D.C.L.

University of Pittsburgh Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher. New York Times LL.D.

University of Rochester

Robert Maynard Hutchins, president.

Fund for the Republic LL.D.

University of the South Roger Blough, board chairman. U.S.

Steel Co D.C.L.

Wittenberg College Eric Sevareid, broadcaster and news analyst Litt.D.

Yale University Alfred A. Knopf, publisher L.H.D.

Citation: "Lifelong concern with the liberating word . . ." Sidney Lovett, retiring chaplain of Yale University .................. D.D.

William McChesney Martin Jr., chairman, board of governors. Federal Reserve System ............... LL.D.

Lyman Spitzer Jr., astrophysicist and chairman, department of astronomy, Princeton .................. Sc.D.

Yeshiva University Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, philanthropist ....................... LL.D.

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