I know Eleanor (Shea) Walsh very well. When I saw the photo, I contacted her son, who is a priest in Nebraska. He said it is his mom. She is now in a nursing home in Nebraska. She's a wonderful lady.

At least I'm pretty.

in the middle, just having won with the correct rendering of "Expea......." (help! men can't spel)

Enjoying the Shorpy humour here.

...With a nod to Jerome Bixby

What, boys can't spell? Just wait till the math competion.
You'll be able to smell the testosterone in the air!

Second place: Elizabeth O'Keefe of Hoboken, N.J.
Third place: Eleanor Shea of Omaha, NE.

In 1949 in Omaha, an Eleanor Shea married future candidate for governor and seventeen-year state-court judge Albert Walsh (1926-2009). They became the parents of twelve children. According to his obituary, she survived him when he passed away. I wonder whether she may still be with us.

(As for the victor, Laura Kuykendall of rural Cookeville TN, married Jacob Mullins. They became the parents of five children. He died in 2001 at age 81, and she died three years later.)

Look at all the greasy fingerprints on that trophy!

Ya gotta love that smug expression on Miss Hoboken.

If I may ask an obvious question, how come one girl represents a city while the other represents an entire state? Is it like the American League vs the National League? Were there also a couple of other contestants in this competition with signs hanging around them that read "New Jersey" and "Omaha?"

Plaque, p-l-a-q-u-e, plaque

That the winning word was THERAPY, what does that say about how things have gone since?

On their minds ...

Yikes! Ha ha.

[When I done reading I laugh so hard! - Dave]

This photo was taken in the National Press Club. The carpet on the wall behind the three girls is woven with the Press Club's logo. What's intriguing to me is that the border of this carpet identifies it as a Chinese export carpet, probably woven in Tientsin in the 1920s or 1930s. The border is composed of traditional Chinese Daoist art motifs known as the "Eight Precious Things," associated with the ideal scholarly life. One of those motifs is the beribboned set of books next to Lauren Kuykendall's head. The Press Club could have ordered the custom carpet from the Walter Nichols carpet company in Tientsin through his American distributor, the Pande-Cameron Carpet Company. Here is a detail of the Press Club's logo, and a diagram of the Eight Precious Things from Adolf Hackmack's "Chinese Carpets and Rugs," published in Tientsin in 1923.

J-E-A-L-O-U-S

Not thrilled. Her first experience of the bridesmaid syndrome.

From the great state of Michigan, Ms. Ypsilanti.

The 1940 National Spelling Bee was sponsored by the Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal, which organized the first contest in 1925. Miss Nebraska is perhaps the decorated veteran of previous bees. The 1940 winner was Laurel Kuykendall of Knoxville, Tennessee, and the winning word was "therapy."