In elementary school I always made it to our school spelling bees. While for some kids they seemed they could care less, I anticipated that time of the year when we would compete first in our classrooms and then in front of the entire school.

Competitors were given a list of words probably five pages long, double-sided, and at night my parents would quiz me. I would stand in the kitchen and speak into an invisible microphone, pronounce the word, spell it and say it a final time. 

The words weren’t nearly as difficult as those given to us in the spelling bee last week – our demise was with the word babelization, which means an act or state of confusion, especially through mingling of markedly different languages and cultures – my spell check apparently has never heard of babelization either, because it has a red squiggly line underneath it as I write this.  

My parents and I would practice probably enough to get half way through the list before it was time to compete. I don’t remember being nervous – I should have been, because now, the thought of doing anything before a large crowd gets my stomach in knots.

My family always came to support me and I would look for them before taking my seat on the stage at the Parish Hall in Biddeford.

I remember one kid went out on the word roommate, he spelled “rom,” before catching himself on his mistake – ding, he was out. The moderator would ring a bell if you had made a mistake, which was your signal to exit the stage and take your seat among the average spellers in the school.

I don’t remember how far I made it in that particular bee, but I do remember I went out on the word honorary. Not a difficult word, I don’t even remember how I spelled it, but I do remember how I felt when I heard that bell. 

I left the stage, holding back tears. I don’t like to lose, but even more, I don’t like to fail – I see the two as very different. 

When forced to sink or swim, I always swim – at least as far as everything but spelling bees are concerned. On that note, this will be my last column. I’m leaving for a position at a company in Scarborough where I’ll fuse my love of writing with my love of animals. 

When I started this job two years ago, it was sink or swim – it’s like that in any job. My editor at the time used phrases like “hit the ground running,” to encourage me in the new position. While it was encouraging, I had to prove to myself that I would succeed.

My first assignment was to go down to the Kennebunk area to take stand-alone photos – in February. I couldn’t find a soul in town and when I did, stalked them with my camera and notepad in hand, hoping they would do something interesting so I could take a photo. 

I’ve learned a lot about the dynamics in each town I’ve covered and will probably be compelled to keep up on your news long after I’ve left. When I started I didn’t even know what a selectman or town meeting was and had no clue what the purpose of a planning board was – now I know more than I probably ever want to know about those things.

After sitting through hours of meetings, I respect all that town managers, mayors, city councils and boards of selectmen have to do to keep their cities and towns functioning. While I respect the job, I’ve also come to realize how much work and politics is involved and would probably never want to do it.

There were both bumps and successes, and I’ve come to really enjoy this work and everyone I’ve met along the way and hope my new job will bring the same enjoyment and satisfaction.

– Molly Lovell