Spelling is h-a-r-d

I did not watch the National Spelling Bee last night. I got through, maybe, 10 minutes of it. I never took part in a spelling bee, that I remember, and I'm okay with that. Isn't it enough that I spend my life proofreading now? Brian commented last night on how he'd never competed, and assumed that I had. I remember there being spelling bees at Pinecrest, but I never had the motivation to join in the contest.
What was it, about 10 years ago, that ESPN started airing the National Spelling Bee? I dug that, and it was fun to watch. Last night, with the big national prime-time show, it got cheesy. The second they started the maudlin music and interviewing the first kid "at home," and "being a regular boy," I lost complete and utter interest in it. Why does primetime television have to try its best to make everything so emotionally engaging and heart-tugging? Why not just let the contest be in that one hour, and have that be the end of it? (Also, the girl who was having a fit over "collyrium," drove me CRAZY.)
At any rate, the winner is a 13-year-old girl from Spring Lake, New Jersey. Katharine Close correctly spelled "ursprache," which means a parent language, and took home a trophy and $42,000 in cash and prizes. (Another good thing, I think, is that only one of the finalists was home schooled. Hoorah to the official school system!)
Read about the telecast here.