Anthea Craven, Paula Long and Rich Seifert—appearing as the 'Svelte Spelts'—won the 20th Biz Bee at the Westmark Thursday night.

As a judge, working alongside Nicole Stewart and Betsy Robertson, I watched as the Spelts battled for supremacy with the "Bookends" of the Noel Wien Library, who finished  a strong second.

There were nearly two dozen library supporters, most of them employees and spouses, who cheered on the Bookends—Tom Yenchesky, Gabrielle Kiele and Susan Seefeldt.

The library had the best supporting group in attendance, followed by the CRAYons of the supercomputing center— Greg Newby, Dale Clark and Kate Hedstrom. The "Joy Spellerifics," consisting of Shane Wiegand, Sally Kieper and Susie Brainard, also had a solid cheering section, as did several other teams.

The pronouncer was Duff Johnston of the UAF English Department, whose job was almost as hard as that of the spellers. The final word was easy—sacristy, but it was preceded by the likes of filasse, etesian, frangible, iridaceous, woad and many a challenging selection.

Jim Matherly was the master of ceremonies, while Cynthia Klepaski and Karen Lundquist were the scorekeepers. Dan Darrow kept track of time.

The team of Craven, Long and Seifert has been a top finisher many times, sponsored in the past by Superior Hardwoods. This year they were sponsored by the Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market.

The Bookends, who also have done well over the years, are sponsored by Kohler, Schmitt & Hutchison.

All told, the 16 teams and supporters raised $20,693 during the evening for the Literacy Council of Alaska.

The Rotary Club of Fairbanks, the Daily News-Miner and Ken Murray Insurance were honored for sponsoring teams all 20 years.

This is the third time Seifert has been on a winning team, dating back to 1993. While he celebrated his spelling victory, his wife, Patty, was a winner as well, taking home the first-place raffle prize of two tickets on Alaska Airlines.