The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 220

Page 10W Tuesday, June 29, 2004 The Register's Iowa Weekly 1 INSIDER: REWIND STATE L3 i Atdacc 'Semaphore' signaled triumph Iowa native recalls his spelling bee victory little background: Jonathan Hahnof St. Olaf stumbled on the word Lubavitcher when iru V-il In lis A I A- iVf REGISTER FILE PHOTO he was asked to spell it June 3 at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Hahn, 14, forgot the all-important That eliminated him in the seventh round, but he still tied for eighth place one of the best showings by an Iowan in recent years. The last Iowan to win the national bee was John McKinney in 1946. We found McKinney, now 71, living in Seattle.

By ABBY SIMONS REGISTER STAFF WRITER About a month ago, the world watched in suspense as the fate of Indiana eighth-grader David Tidmarsh hung in the balance. Lip trembling, sweat and tears pouring down his face, his voice barely above a whisper, the 14-year-old took his shot at glory. Iowa winners John McKinney is the fourth and most recent Iowan to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Other Iowa champions and their winning words include: Helen Jensen, 1930 (fracas) Dorothy Greenwald, 1932 (knack) Jean Trowbridge, 1936 (interning) Origins of a bee The origin of the term "spelling bee" is believed to be derived from a community social gathering where people joined together in a single activity to help a person or family, according to the Scripps National Spelling Bee Web site. The earliest known example in print is a spinning bee, in 1769.

Other early occurrences are husking bee (1816), apple bee (1827), and logging bee (1836). Spelling bee history The Scripps National Spelling Bee originated when the Louisville Courier-Journal sponsored the event with nine contestants in 1925. In 1 941 Scripps assumed sponsorship of the program. There was no Scripps National Spelling Bee during the World War II years of 1943, 1944 and 1945. Co-champions were declared in 1950, 1957 and 1962.

Of the 79 champions, 42 are girls and 37 are boys. Source; Scripps National Spelling Bee Web site, www.spellingbee.com What does it mean? Ever wonder exactly what those spelling bee words mean? Autochthonous (2004) adjective; of or relating to any of the earliest known inhabitants of a place or any indigenous animal or plant Semaphore (1946) noun; an apparatus for signaling, such as the arrangement of lights, flags and mechanical arms on railroads; a system of signaling by the use of two flags, one held in each hand Source: Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition Southwest Iowa From Register staff and news services COUNCIL BLUFFS Teenager admits role in woman's death An Omaha teenager admitted his role in the death of a Council Bluffs woman who was killed when a landscaping stone thrown from an overpass crashed through her car's windshield last year. Daniel J. Beerman, 17, said he tossed a stone off an Interstate Highway 680 overpass, but added that he didnt know if it was the stone that caused the July 1 death of Michelle Fergus, 34. Beerman told Judge J.

Patrick Mulle he and Eric Warbelton both threw stones off the overpass. An Aug. 25 sentencing date had been scheduled for Beerman. Beerman and Warbelton, who also pleaded guilty of manslaughter in March, each face up to 20 years in prison. Traffic stop results in good fortune A routine traffic stop in 2002 has turned into a windfall for three Council Bluffs-area law enforcement agencies.

The Pottawattamie County attorney's office and the Nebraska State Patrol will each receive almost $75,000, their cut of a $746,198 cash forfeiture case. The Iowa State Patrol will get $450,000. State troopers found the money in several suitcases of a rental car. Federal prosecutors won a lawsuit to claim the money, alleging it was drug money or property involved in an illegal business. Tax change increases cost of casino purchase Harrah's Entertainment has paid $73 million more for Bluffs Run Casino in Council Bluffs.

Harrah's bought the racetrack and casino in 2001. But the terms of the deal included a provision for an increase in the price if the state cut racetrack casino taxes before 2007. That happened this year. In April, the Legislature approved a bill that lowered the tax rate to 22 percent from 36 percent. Autochthonous.

A Tidmarsh got it right to become champion of the 77th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee on June 3 in Washington, D.C. John McKinney gives a good-natured laugh upon hearing of the boy's success. Although McKinney John McKinney The pressure's on: John McKinney, 13, spells a word toward the end of the 1946 Scripps National Spelling Bee at the Press Club Auditorium in Washington, D.C. At left is pronouncer Harold Harding. McKinney, a native of Woodbine who won that competition, now lives in Seattle.

national spelling champion is met with far more fanfare today than it was during the days of his triumph. His $500 prize was a mere fraction of the $18,000 raked in by Tidmarsh, and, contrary to the winners of the annual competition now televised on ESPN, his eighth-grade classmates were unfamiliar, if not unimpressed. "Like Rodney Dangerfield, it didn't get me much respect," he said. "Back then, people didn't put much thought into anything that even remotely smacked of intellectual effort. But I don't mean to put down the good people of Iowa.

Things have certainly changed since then." McKinney's sister, Margaret Brown, calls her brother modest. The public's reception when he returned to Woodbine, she said, was "really a big thing," complete with speeches by the mayor and superintendent. Hundreds of letters from admirers throughout the world began to fill the didn't watch this year's competition from his Seattle home, the 71-year-old Woodbine native can definitely relate. It was 58 years ago when a cool, collected McKinney received the same accolades as he was named the 1946 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion the fourth and most recent Iowan to take the national title. He was 13.

It was in the 26th round of competition, a May 24, 1946, Register article said, when McKinney took the title after Mary McCarthy of Visitation Parochial School in the Bronx tripped up on "flaccid," spelling it "phlaxid." McKinney corrected McCarthy's version of the word, then spelled "semaphore" to be named champion. "I just felt I'd get up there and do my best," he said. "If I won, I won, and if I lost, I lost. I certainly didn't go in with any idea that I was going to win." McKinney admits that the title of family's mailbox. Nevertheless, she wasnt exactly shocked by her brother's accomplishment.

"My grandmother always used to say he had a photographic memory. He could just visualize the page on which he read the word and then he'd spell it," said Brown, 66, who lives with her husband in Depoe Bay, Ore. "He always was a terrific reader and he could play the piano just by listening, and could accompany with it melody-It just wasn't something people did in a little farm town, and sitting and listening to him play the piano used to just amaze me.".