Daughter continues late father's role in Vindy Spelling Bee

BOARDMAN

For Pam Pasquale, The Vindicator 83rd Regional Spelling Bee is about T-R-A-D-I-T-I-O-N.

Pasquale is volunteering at the bee, which begins at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Chestnut Room in Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University, as a checker for the first time.

Checkers double check words spelled by participants, providing another level of verification for judges.

It’s a role her father, the late John Rozzo, filled for about 45 years.

Last year, he became a judge. That was his last bee.

“The spelling bee is the last thing he did,” Pasquale said.

It was in mid-March, and Rozzo became ill in April and died last June.

For the last nine years, Pasquale accompanied her dad to the bee, picking him up in the morning, taking him to YSU and sitting in the front row while he volunteered.

“Afterwards we’d go out to lunch and talk about the bee,” she said. “We made a day of it.”

Last year, Pasquale told her dad that volunteering at the bee is something she’d like to do, too.

“He said, ‘You should,’” she said.

Read what happened after that in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.