This is not your grandparents’ Scripps National Spelling Bee.
In 1976, the nation’s bicentennial year, Tim Kneale of Syracuse correctly recited the letters of the word “narcolepsy” to become the 49th national champion and the first from New York state.
The 8th-grader successfully spelled conceit, opalescent, carafe, egalitarian, supernumerary, persiflage, literati, aphotic, demulcent, hagiology, and sauerbraten ahead of the winning word to claim the $1,000 prize, according to his recollection documented in a 2017 newsletter from his alma mater (Class of 1980), Onondaga Central School.
Kneale, who attended MIT to study chemical engineering and now heads an international plastics company, shook hands with President Gerald Ford after hoisting his trophy and appeared on the Mike Douglas television show alongside fellow young celebrities Stephanie Mills, Ally Sheedy, and Kristy McNichol, according to the newsletter….