National Spelling Bee - Senior Edition

Saturday was the 13th Annual AARP Magazine National Spelling Bee. Unlike the Scripps National Spelling Bee, this is a bee for people aged 50 years and up. One of the rewards of being more mature and having a continued interest in spelling is the three strike rule. In other words, contestants are not eliminated until they have misspelled three words. The winning word this year was debouch," which is defined as "to come forth; emerge." This was spelled correctly by Larry Grossman, of Northwood, N.D. More impressive to me, however, was the word Grossman, 56, spelled prior to debauch to make it to the final round - botryoidal meaning "shaped like a bunch of grapes." I think botryoidal is a cool sounding and unusual word and would have been another great entry for The Most Unusual Word Contest (hint for future contests).