Jaques Bailly is a spell-ebrity.

The former Denver Catholic school prodigy has been the face of the Scripps National Spelling Bee as a most patient pronouncer for 20 years — so beloved, young competitors recognize him with a “Howdy Dr. Bailly!” when they first step up to the microphone.

During Wednesday’s fifth round, Bailly repeated the word “lenticillate” three times for Nyarah Garver, a nervous 7th-grader  from Wyndham, New York. She wrongly sounded out “L-E-N-T-I-C-E-L-L-E-T,” and exited the National Scripps Spelling Bee stage with a limp high-five for the next competitor.

“It was that final ‘e,’” said pronouncer Bailly, who is in many ways the face of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and appears to feel every kid’s disappointment.

“I remember being up there,” he said.

Forty-four years ago, Bailly was one of two kids left on the intimidating stage when a girl from El Paso, Texas, incorrectly spelled the word “glitch” as “glitsch.” Bailly took a shot at the word which means “a problem or malfunction in a machine,” and nailed it.

The Denver eighth-grader then handled his own word, “elucibrate” and brought home to Colorado the trophy cup, a color television, a set of encyclopedias and $1,000, which he spent on fishing gear, and records.

Bailly is now a classics professor at the University of Vermont who speaks and teaches several languages and also studies Arabic, Sanskrit and Old Norse. He spoke with The Denver Gazette between competitive rounds this week from National Harbor, Maryland.

“I was pulled into the spelling bee in sixth grade by Sister Eileen at Saint Vincent de Paul School. We were drilling the words,” he said.

Sister Eileen Kelly, a Sister of Loretto, accompanied Bailly and his parents to the 53rd Annual Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. in May of 1980, the year he won.

“Work, work, work is another key to mastery,” the nun told The Rocky Mountain News for an article about the two of them.

In that same news story, Bailly credited Kelly and his mom, Florence, for his successful third try at the Bee. “I owe it all to my mom and my coach!” he was quoted saying.

As the national spelling champion, he met President Jimmy Carter, and “perhaps scored a first” when he refused an invitation by Carter to say a few words, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

A scholar in a bee outfit

This year’s Super Bowl of spelling bees had 245 competitive word nerds and has become highly competitive. Though the students wear everyday clothes like t-shirts and sneakers, the atmosphere is as intense as any elite competition with a $50,000 cash prize from Scripps, $2,500 from Miriam-Webster and a 1768 Encyclopedia Britannica Replica Set

Bailly loosens up competitors by wearing bee antennae and a set of netted wings.

“It’s Bee day!” he says to a group of students trying to study. “Whoop whoop whoop!”

The 58-year-old started out doing anything he could to get involved with the national bee including stacking chairs. He was offered the job as assistant pronouncer and held that position for 12 years before he was promoted to pronouncer — which he has done for 20.

Pronunciation is not easy and making a mistake with words like pampootie and wentletrap in front of participants who are already under pressure is a big no-no. There is copious preparation behind-the-scenes to prevent that from happening.

“We have a big team who prepares by going through the list of words several times,” he said. “I literally read a script. ”

The Merriam-Webster unabridged is the official dictionary of the national Bee.

Whatever happened to “spaghetti”?

The master pronouncer has criticism for the words the Scripps National Spelling Bee uses now. Bailly believes the Bee is “hitting the kids with really hard words” which he feels can leave out some of the best spellers.

Tuesday, a fifth grader from Niwot went out in the third round on the word “butyraceous” which means “of or like butter.”

Unigravada (a woman in her first pregnancy), dialypetalous (flowers having separate petals), and cothurnus (a thick-soled boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy) were three words in Wednesday’s morning rounds.

“If you could get words like accommodate and spaghetti, more kids would stay in,” said Bailly.

He also believes that there are two letters in the alphabet which are useless: “c,” which is basically the same as “k” and “x.”

Colorado’s last competitor standing

Thirteen-year-old Aditi Muthukumar made it to the Elite Eight of the Bee Wednesday afternoon, the final spellers standing after two days of grueling competition.

She made it through Wednesday’s 4th, 5 and 6th rounds spelling “Torquemada” — Tomás de Torquemada was the ruthlessly cruel first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition — and stayed alive after she explained that when someone shows “bellicosity” that person is showing a propensity to be aggressive.

In the first three rounds of the Bee on Tuesday, the Westminster 8th grader correctly spelled “nyctinasty” — which is what a plant does when it folds its petals or leaves together at night.

The Hulstrom K-8 student then accurately defined the word “viscidity” — the property of being sticky — and then correctly spelled word “lamina,” a thin sheet or layer of tissue.

This is Muthukumar’s second trip to the national bee. Last year, she came in 74th.

She will participate in the finals which are shown live Thursday night on ION starting at 6 p.m. Mountain Time.