How do you spell humility? C-a-t-e-r-...

Sometime in the coming weeks, the News Tribune will host its second annual spelling bee. The proceeds will benefit our Newspaper in Education program and other good causes, and it's also an opportunity for the local literati to shine.

But please don't ask your editor to be a contestant.

I'm not a bad speller, yet any desire I had for showing off in public ended in fourth grade with "exercise," into which I managed to insert an extra c. Since then, my credo has been if not sure, look it up. And don't rely on spell check, either; it won't catch homonyms that

incessantly lye in weight.

Nonetheless, I rather reluctantly agreed to be a celebrity speller in the

Duluth Playhouse's recent production of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." As the title suggests, the show is about a bee, and with me were three walk-ons chosen from the audience. We were given a

5-minute run-through before the show and soon after called up on the stage.

I had an inkling my first word would be easy, and when Jason Page, playing bee judge Douglas Panch, said "Mexican," it drew howls of protest from the actors in character. Of course I got it right and staved off embarrassment to the newspaper.

In the next round was a word I never heard of that I guessed as "a-b-o-u-t-e." Page, at first looking ready to dismiss me, glanced back at his cheat sheet and said, "You're right!"

I went back to my place on the stage, which meant participating in another production number to prove without doubt that my

dancing skills in no way matched my spelling. But I obeyed the instructions to follow an actor's lead and managed not to step on

anyone's toes.

By the next round, the other walk-ons had been eliminated, and I was perfectly willing to go as well. Page said something that sounded like "catter-joons" and gave an obscure definition from which I inferred a possible Portuguese origin. That could mean it had a

"u-e" in it, I thought, and spelled "c-a-t-e-r-g-u-e-n-e-s."

Page looked even more amazed than before. "You're right!" he said with a fluster as the audience roared

approval. I turned to resume my place but he called me back.

"Maybe I should tell you one I don't know," I said, both celebrating my prowess and wanting to help him get me off the stage.

He didn't need help.

"Xeropthalmiology," he said, and I answered, leaving out the p. "You were very close," he said as the cast went into its goodbye number and the audience again thundered approval.

Trying to find humility but beaming nonetheless, I thought maybe it's not a bad thing that a town can celebrate an ace speller as its editor. This more than made up for "exercise."

Yet as an editor, I had to know more, especially how close I had come on the last one. At home I went online, and found... nothing?

Maybe that one was too technical. I searched caterguenes. That didn't show up, either. But caterjoons did. And caterjeunes.

Huh?

The references were in a Canadian Reader's Digest article of a "Putnam County" celebrity speller, just like me, who also had foresworn spelling bees in grammar school. The entire exercise was a scripted improvisation, she wrote, with cast members using some made-up words to keep or boot the celebrity spellers.

"The celebrity had to be the one to stay until the end," said Carolyn LePine, who played bee host Ms. Peretti in our production. "Once in a while, if somebody misheard a word that they normally would have spelled correctly, only the celebrity would move forward" -- which is what happened with "aboute."

Page actually said "apoot," which I don't know if I would have gotten.

"Yeah. I didn't always enunciate very well," he said modestly, though I'd blame acoustics or my hearing first. His acting when I got it "right" certainly convinced me.

"I'm surprised by the people that buy into that," he said. My ego aside, he added: "You were very well-behaved. Some of the (guest spellers) got lippy. We had a matinee where I told them I would get the comfort counselors out to settle them down."

So I wasn't that bad, and in the end, I didn't embarrass the paper, got a moment in the sun and learned a little humility in the process.

Not a bad excercise after all.

Robin Washington is editor of the News Tribune. He may be reached at rwashington@ duluthnews.com.