By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
Riding over from Trinity Oaks Tuesday, the participants in this year’s Scrabble Scramble heard some sobering words of encouragement from their bus driver.
“I said they would all have to walk home if they didn’t win,” Don Wooten said.
Wooten’s incentive, plus grit and determination, proved to be enough. The nine-member Trinity Oaks team won its flight and finished second overall in the Rowan County Literacy Council’s sixth annual event.
“Teamwork and organization,” Trinity Oaks’ Hope Davis explained. “We assessed roles, and we learned to maximize (the value of words and letters).”
For the fourth year in a row, the South Rowan Y Service Club trounced the competition behind 15-letter words such as “oxyphenbutazone.” The service club, truly the elite in this event, captured the championship flight over the Friends of the Library and Scrabbled Eggs teams.
The more experienced teams strategize and go into the competition with a list of 15-letter words they can spread across the top and bottom of their Scrabble boards.
They then find ways to link those highly valued words to the center word that the Literacy Council provides in each of the three rounds.
The teams also bring plenty of cash, needed to buy extra valued letters such as “Q” and “Z.”
The starting words Tuesday night at the Holiday Inn were “determination,” “alphabetizing” and “thunderstorms.”
Some of the 15-letter words used in various rounds included “benzoxycamphors” from the Scrabbled Eggs, “juxtapositional” from the Friends of the Library, “sesquicentenary” from the Word Wonders and “procrastination” and “transformation” from Leadership Rowan.
The veteran teams and some of their players, such as Trinity Oaks and the library, have been here every year. Others read about the fundraiser in the newspaper, are invited by a friend or family member or hear about it someplace else and decide to participate.
Quentin Woodard Jr., who came by himself, was put onto a team named the Wizards, which didn’t perform too badly, considering the players had never practiced and, in many cases, had never met each other before Tuesday night.
“This is my first time playing Scrabble, period,” Woodard said. “… Maybe next year I’ll get a team together.”
Scrabble Scramble is the biggest annual fundraising event for the Literacy Council, and many businesses and individuals in the community sponsor tables and door prizes. Tuesday night’s event, which included a dinner, attracted 67 Scrabble players.
While the economy had something to do with the lower number of players this year, the event still had the same number of tables (10), according to Scramble chairwoman Susanne Pierce.
In 2008, the Literacy Council had 42 tutors and 158 students. Some 82 people overall volunteered in some capacity for the council. Current students range in age from 16 to 74.
Tutors go through 12 hours of training, and roughly two-thirds of the students are foreign born, Chairwoman Phyllis Martin estimated.
The money raised Tuesday night goes toward training tutors, providing them with teaching materials and buying books for the students. For more information on being a tutor, contact Administrative Assistant Daisy Boyd at 704-216-8266.
Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Cook Jr. were the major corporate sponsor for this year’s Scramble. Table sponsors included Friends of the Library, Florence Peck, South Rowan Y Service Club, Ting Hao Chinese Restaurant and Trinity Oaks.
Individual supporters were Mr. and Mrs. Webster Collett, Dr. and Mrs. Jim Epperson, Norma Goldman, Lillian’s Library, Julie Linehart, Mr. and Mrs. Jim Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Mills, Mr. and Mrs. Tony Misenheimer, Barbara Norman, Mr. and Mrs. Edward P. Norvell, Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Stanback, Mr. and Mrs. Pasquale Stellute, Kim Troutman, Mr. and Mrs. W.S. Swaim and Dr. Steve Yang.
Prize donors included Caniche, Godley’s Garden Center, Jerry’s Shell Service, Literary Book Post, N.C. Transportation Museum, the Philpotts and Edward D. Jones, Pleasant Papers, Queen’s, Rufty’s Garden Shop, Sam’s Car Wash, Sidewalk Deli, Pat Sylvester, Stitchin’ Post Gifts and Village Grocery.