The Shopping Guide News of Fulton County came out on top of the 16th annual Fulton County Literacy Council Spell Bowl, held Tuesday, Sept. 29, at Rochester High School The winning team included, in front from left, Chelsea Los and Amanda McFarland. In the back row are Keith Knepp and Ray Balogh.

ROCHESTER — After a hard-fought contest at the Tuesday evening, Sept. 29, Spell Bowl in Rochester, a quartet of writers representing The Shopping Guide News of Fulton County and The Papers Inc. walked off with a narrow victory at the Fulton County Literacy Coalition’s 16th annual fundraiser.

Keith Knepp, editor of The Shopping Guide News, led the “Printer’s Posse,” including colleagues Amanda McFarland, Chelsea Los and Ray Balogh, in correctly spelling 54 of the 60 words presented by moderators during the two-hour competition. Teams representing Akron Elementary School and Rochester High School each properly spelled 52 words, earning them a tie for second place.

Knepp hailed the contributions of each of the Posse’s members. “This really was a team effort,” he said. “Everyone had something to contribute that no one else knew.”

Case in point: McFarland’s familiarity with one of the least-known words of the evening. “My favorite moment was correctly spelling ‘coelacanth’ (pronounced ‘see-LUH-kenth’),” McFarland said. “I read about the fish as a kid and for years mispronounced it, based on the way it was spelled. Ironically, that error worked to our advantage.”

McFarland also contributed the correct spelling of “Aubbeenaubbee,” Los provided “Chautauqua,”, Knepp supplied “Schnabeltier,” and Balogh offered “chiaroscuro.”

One word stumped everyone in the room: “ceilidh,” pronounced “KAY-lee,” a Celtic term referring to a party or gathering featuring folk music, dancing and storytelling.

The 38-team field was a record for the event, held in the tightly-packed cafeteria at Rochester High School. Each team was assigned a monitor chosen by the coalition. Running scores were announced after each of the three rounds.

“The last round of words really had me puzzled, and we were definitely feeling the pressure in the home stretch,” added Los.

This was the first year the 60-word list was peppered with proper nouns (capitalized words such as the names of people, places and businesses), which comprised nearly one-fourth of the words.

The competition consisted of three rounds of 20 words each. The moderator announced the word and its definition and used it in a sentence. The teams then had 35 seconds to confer, write their spelling of the word on an official scorecard and hand it to their proctor, who scored the attempt as the moderator gave the correct spelling.

The team is already looking forward to defending its title in 2016. Knepp urged others to join the worthwhile event as well. “The Fulton County Literacy Coalition puts on a really fun event,” he said, “and I’d encourage organizations who have never participated to enter a team in next year’s competition.”

The 60 words presented (after the practice word of “literacy”) were, in order:

Round 1: Carmichael, subpoena, calisthenics, microbiome, appellate, alluvial, Mississinewa, narcissism, referee, photolysis, suffrage, archipelago, pipistrelle, entrepreneur, orthography, aerodynamics, constituent, cirque, opalescent and zucchini.

Round 2: lacrosse, phenology, bellwether, steppes, Manitou, pirouette, palette, epinephrine, hieroglyphic, Chihuahua, Aubbeenaubbee, hierarchy, colloquial, tonsillectomy, apartheid, cryosphere, Eiteljorg, paraphernalia, caricature and ichthyology.

Round 3: asceticism, bituminous, Chautauqua, pharmaceutical, karaoke, heterozygous, Renaissance, Euphrates, Kosciusko, reconnaissance, chiaroscuro, polyethylene, myrrh, littoral, Schnabeltier, cirrhosis, ceilidh, coelacanth, Sadducee and Djibouti.