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“I was hoping, obviously, that people would get involved,” she said. “But that first year I actually thought we might just end up having it for just the people in our senior center.”

That first year, the Shelby Township Senior Spellers competed against seniors from the Romeo area. The following year the competition expanded to include teams from Sterling Heights, Chesterfield Township, Clinton Township and St. Clair Shores. This year, Lenox Township may be added to the roster as well when the event takes place Oct. 24 from 9 a.m. to noon at the St. Clair Shores Senior Activities Center.

“We’ve had some pretty good growth among our own team,” Grubb said. “We had to have a spell-down to get our team down to six members this year because we had so many people who wanted to get involved.”

Each community’s team will be comprised of a maximum of six participants, with two alternates. Each participant will be asked to spell a word from a list of more than 100 words that they have been poring over for the past few months.

“The spellers tell me that it’s horrendous this year,” said Grubb. “They tell me it’s much harder than it was in the past. I didn’t think it was any harder, but maybe I’m just getting used to it.”

In Shelby Township, the team has been gathering for practice every Tuesday afternoon to quiz each member on the word list. For many, this is the first time since high school they have participated in a spelling bee; for others, it’s been even longer.

“Some of them remember back to when they had dictionaries provided by the Detroit News, so it’s been since grade school for some of them,” Grubb said. “But they get right back in there. I guess it’s just one of those things you never lose.”

Grubb said she decided to organize the event after hearing about a similar competition in Oakland County; Macomb County had no organized spelling bee for its senior residents and she thought it would be a good fit in Shelby Township. She said she’s pleasantly surprised by the event’s success.

“I think because our body’s fail us as we get older, this is one form of competition we can still take part in because our mind’s still sharp,” she said. “If you come in here you see that we do have a lot of senior residents in wheelchairs or who have difficulty walking, so I think that has a lot to do with (the popularity).”