As the Scripps National Spelling Bee enters its final rounds tonight, a fond memory is this perfect shot from years ago of a bell destroying a child’s dreams.

But this week, Texas has 22 munchkins competing for the 2025 title. I dialed into a bit of the contest and have feelings.

First, I’m concerned the competitors are trying to become stars. We didn’t need to know which cricket team you support, sir, and perhaps this is a scandalous insinuendo, but m’lady, if you were less worried about how bad “lixiviate” sounds, you might not have missed your next word.

I don’t like to brag, but I won my school spelling bee in, like, sixth grade. Or seventh. Or eighth. I don’t recall the specifics, but I do recall spelling “fanaticism” wrong at the city spelling bee. I don’t mean to shift blame here, but my error was entirely the fault of the Phillie Phanatic. Look at him all smug like he thinks he’s better than you.

The Texans were just getting the job done.

Several from across the state got their words right in the quarterfinals. After listening to munchkin after munchkin ask for a definition, alternate pronunciations, language of origin and parts of speech, I might have encouraged one of them to ask, “Can I hear the pronunciation again? …And how is that spelled?”

One did get right to the point… and then was rewarded with a strangely long sample sentence involving a Silly Putty, bubblegum and a cookie dough pie.

The play-by-play team also pointed out the schwa was catching several spellers.

“Yer weak, schwa!” they could have exclaimed.

While I still enjoy bragging about minor accomplishments from 30 years ago, I realize now I would have been completely out of my element with students who’ve actually done their work. The munchkin who was runner-up last year is from Plano. He came on my station and talked about the amount of time he spent getting ready.

It’s possible I spent less time studying. Every day when I got home from school, I watched Animaniacs. I really think I made the right call on that, and in my defense, I have since figured out how to spell fanaticism.

But Faizan Zaki made it through the early rounds Wednesday, and as I type Thursday afternoon, easily hitting coterell in Round 10.

We may joke around here at 1 Scaianalysis Esplanade, but these children have accomplished something monumental. Not only do they spend a lot of time studying, they face increasing amounts of pressure. A lot of us would get nervous trying to spell a word in front of a school gym with kids you know. Imagine extending that to a large auditorium with kids from all over town and then culminating at a convention center in Washington D.C. with millions of people watching on TV [“Some of the people watching might have blogs!” the kids cry out in their sleep.]

They even keep a running list of the words kids are spelling wrong.

I completely understand the munchkin from Wisconsin getting exasperated when he was warned about a homonym.

But you know what? He kept his cool and belted out the correct spelling of metanym to the world.

To support these competitors, I’d suggest we all pool our money and sponsor one next year. Instead of “Dallas Morning News” or “Fort Worth Public Library,” we could name the organization, “Scaiaholics Anonymous.”