Bee History

The Annual Atlanta Open Orthographic Meet was started in 1971 by a group of highly literate drinking buddies, men and women who hung out at the Stein Club (929 Peachtree Street NE). They argued about who was the best speller. They decided to settle the matter by planning a bee. The Stein Club pitched in with prizes and the event continued annually. The Stein Club closed in 2000 (the building was torn down), we moved it to Manuel’s Tavern at 602 North Highland. It was a natural fit.

In 1971 some of the people present were:

Stein Club Personnel:

Jim Calloway - Stein Club owner, who provided a pitcher of beer as a prize

Catherine Porter – designed and made a medallion for the winner

Committee Members:

Bob Califf – Provided the words on pieces of paper.

Tom Couch – Enunciator, who says that he failed to realize the seriousness of the spellers and “their wrath rained down” upon him. There was no preparation for enunciators, no definitions, or rules of order.

Levi Terrill - Enunciator.

Patricia Price – Committee member/enunciator.

Harold Moore - timekeeper.

Spellers:

J. Richard (Dick) Price – 1^st place

Taylor Murray - 2nd place

Anthony Jonathan Pendlebury Jackson (AJPJ also known as John Jackson)

Arthur (Buddy) Blakely

Daisy Adderly (who may have come up with the Bee idea)

Patti Wallace

Bob Hatcher

Tom Hatcher

Billie McWhorter Brown, and others.

(John Peek, one of the group, missed 1971, but was there every other year thru 2001!!)

Other early years included “celebrity enunciators” such as Hank Ezell of the Atlanta Constitution and wife Reva Ezell of WABE, Mike Bucki of WABE. Other enunciators were Adrina Richards (whose husband was Donny of Village Bookstore), Bob Califf, Sidney Califf, Maxine Turner, and Beverly Couch.

Dr. Eugene Brown won three years in a row (1981-83). He was added to the committee, to give other competitors a chance. In 1988 he added two ex-winners to the committee, Patti Wallace and Dyna Kohler. Dr. Brown brought order to the process. Words were checked against multiple hardback unabridged dictionaries. Personal computers made it easier to archive words and avoid repeats.

Patti retired in 1993, and Ed Martin, a two-time winner was persuaded to replace her. At that time, only Dr. Brown had won three times. Terrill Soules, our next 3-time winner, joined in 1998. “Three time winners” became our criteria for adding new members. Dr. Brown retired. Karen Peterson and Beatie Divine were the next 3-time winners to be added. Karen Peterson, living in South Carolina, felt able to retire after Beatie came on.

In 2001 the Bee moved to Manuel’s Tavern. The Stein Club had ceased to exist. The date was also shifted from the old, last Saturday in January, to the current Saturday after Valentine’s Day.

In the Stein Club years, the smoke was often overpowering and competitors and enunciators might get drunk and argue. These days, most competitors are more addicted to words than nicotine or alcohol.

Terrill Soules said that when he came in second he realized that if he didn’t drink beer, he could probably win! After that, he won three years in a row.

A brief description of current committee members:

Terrill Soules, a 3-time Bee winner, is a teacher and a poet and Classics scholar and is doing his own translation of Dante’s Inferno, a section of which he reads each year at St. John the Divine church in New York City.

Beatie Divine is a 3-time Bee winner, a linguistics scholar, and works at the CDC in the malaria division, which sends her to various African countries.

Dyna Kohler, a 1-time Bee winner, was illustrator for the Great Speckled Bird in the 1970s,. After a Master’s in Anthropology, she stumbled into the corporate world for the next 20 years. She has been on the committee since 1988.

John Kohler has served as timekeeper/scorekeeper for the Bee since 1988. He retired in 2003 as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Clayton State University, but still teaches historiography.

Nancy Nethery, a 3-time winner, joined the committee after her 2009 win. She works for Cox Enterprises, and was one of the founding editors of AccessAtlanta (fka Prodigy). She has degrees in International Relations & Economics. As a child she competed in the National Spelling Bee.

A bit about other previous committee members:

Dr. Brown, (our first 3-time Bee winner, now deceased), was a retired internist at Emory. He was a Mensa member and taught continuing education courses in such things as philosophy and Greek comedies. He was a 40-year member of a Great Books discussion group. For many years he was active in ballroom dancing and in annual Smithsonian seminars at Oxford University in England. He passed away in 2004.
Patti Wallace, a 2-time Bee winner, with a degree in French romance novels, retired from the committee as it cut into her time with her real passion, fox-hunting. She married and moved to Conyers, the last we heard. We are eager to reconnect if anyone knows her whereabouts!
Ed Martin, a 2 time Bee winner, had been a lawyer, a forester, a college instructor, and then a city planner in Nevada City California. He would fly back for the Bee until 2008, when he decided to retire from the committee.
Karen Peterson, a 3-time Bee winner, lives in South Carolina, works for Greenville News and is raising a family. She took Beatie’s addition as a chance to retire.

If you would like to provide more information on some of the early history of the Bee, we would love it. Send to d_kohler@bellsouth.net. (the 2^nd character is an underscore).