So You Think You Can Spell? (No, Not Especially...)

Note: Photos by Charleston Grit's newest blogger, photographer Donovan J. Snype with commentary by Instant Grit. 

"The word I misspelled was hemorrhage. As in "The more drinks I had, the more by brain began to hemorrhage any knowledge of how to spell." —Grit blogger and spelling bee contestant Thomas Wilkinson  

The So You Think You Can Spell spelling bee last night—held to benefit the Be A Mentor program, which matches at-risk children with character-building adults—was a raging success. Well, not for Thomas because his intellect was hemorrhaging (that's h-e-m...), but he is a smartie (and kind of a babe) so he made it through plenty of rounds. Skirt editor Margaret Pilarski was the big winner. Here she is with her BIG trophy...

Apparently she was at a loss for words? Or flipping off that holier-than-thou dictionary once and for all... 

And kind of hungry after all that spelling...

And despite the looooooooong list of words uttered during the bee not found in Merriam Webster (i.e., Chandler Thomas misspelling "requiem"; he was close though, with his best guess being F-U-C-K -Y-O-U), Charleston magazine editor and bee contestant Darcy Shankland wrote in this morning that it was "fun for the whole familly." See what she did there?

As for emcee Bryce Donovan, he was understandably more jazzed about helping the Be A Mentor charity than the intellectual showdown, explaining: "I've always been a huge Minotaur fan so it was a no-brainer to get involved with this charitable organization." 

Get it?

Anyway, here are a bunch more photos from the event: