New Haven Reads | Rena Tobey

The ABCaesars

For several months, I’ve been volunteering on the committee for New Haven Reads (focused on student literacy) to plan its one fundraiser–the Spelling Bee. Well, they certainly didn’t need my help planning, as they have the event details down. So I did some fundraising, and tonight was the big Bee.

I was a greeter, dressed for the chilly night, and got to see every ‘swarm’ as they came in. Yes, the spellers sign up as teams of 3, and 6 teams, called swarms, compete in each preliminary round. Swarms. Bees. Get it. The swarms compete in rounds until the last standing vie for the honors of Best of Bee. High school teams and adult teams compete separately, and interestingly, the high schoolers didn’t seem to dress up. Did I mention the award for best costume?

Of course, the swarms come up with good names, too. I liked the Librarians from Hell, from the New Haven Public Library–pretty ghoulish, but awesome spellers. Bee-Attitudes were pretty clever, too. The Greater New Haven Community Chorus team was the Bee Sharps.