"Best Speller"

On the auditorium stage of Washington's new National Museum last week before a battery of microphones stood 16 nervous boys and girls. They were finalists in the 13th annual Louisville Courier-Journal National Spelling Bee in which 15 other newspapers participated. They were about to produce the closest practical approximation of the "best speller in the U. S." Representative Lyle Boren of Oklahoma was standing with the judges. Morose, georgette, cited, ingenuity, questionnaire, accessible, meringue, gudgeon, insoluble, parliamentary, aphorism, olfactory and lineaments cleared the stage of all but three. Then the only remaining boy, Angelo Mangieri of Hoboken and the Jersey Observer, 14 and totally blind, tripped on receptacle to win third place. Tiny Betty Grunstra, 12, of Clifton, N. J. and the Passaic Herald News, fell down on plebeian. "Best speller" was chunky, 14-year-old Waneeta Beckley of Louisville's Holy Name School and the Courier-Journal, who corrected Runner-up Grunstra and then spelled promiscuous for good measure.

Clutching a bronze Courier-Journal plaque and a check for $500, blushing Speller Beckley confessed: "The hardest word for me was really baste."

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