The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 @ 11:53AM

I am no how 2 spel gud.

I had a great time last night as a celebrity speller in this show at Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah.  It plays through Sunday and it’s a very entertaining evening of theatre.  Go, go, go.  Get your tickets at http://www.kingtix.com or call 681.7100.

I was on stage with the professional actors and three other audience members.  The whole thing was designed to keep me on stage for as long as possible.  The moderators gave me two pretty easy words to spell.  Then, I got a very difficult word that I’d never even heard before.  I tried my best to spell it phonetically and, the moderators on stage and the rest of the cast seemed to be shocked.  I actually spelled the word “CATTERJUENES” correctly.  I blew them away with my spelling prowess and I blew the audience away.  Everyone bought it including me.  The next word I was asked to spell was even harder and I was not given a chance to spell it.  As I began, they rang the bell on me and said wrong....thanks for playing....and escorted me off stage.  My part was done for the evening.  But, I thought, wow...Bill...you were a great speller. 

But after some thought, and a few words with my son who’d seen the show in New York, I began to realize that the hard word I’d seemed to spell correctly was all a set up.  As far as I can tell, it’s not even a word.  I believed and so did the audience.  Ah, the magic of theatre.

Some of my favorite moments were hearing people talk about me when they didn’t know I was standing near.  My wife heard someone say, “boy Bill Allred sure isn’t very impressive when you see him.  I wasn’t expecting him to be so short.:” And as I was leaving the theatre I overheard a guy say to his wife, “I"ve never really cared for Bill Allred.”

Anyway, thanks to everyone who came to see the ‘Spelling Bee’ last night.  When I left the stage, they gave me a juice box to say thank-you.

P.S. If you go tonight when Doug Wright from KSL is the celebrity speller please contact me and tell me how he does.

Thanks for listening,
Bill