Pedro LopezDeVictoria is the reigning champion of spelling.

He took home the first place trophy from the second annual Adult Spelling Bee hosted by the Orcas Library on Oct. 26 at Orcas Center. The winning word was “outre,” which means unusual or startling.

“To me, the experience of storing and accessing knowledge in our brains is very mysterious. When you recall someone’s name whom you’ve never talked to just by seeing the back of their head from 40 feet away, or when you pull obscure facts about hippos seemingly from thin air — it’s kind of like reaching your hand into this alluring cloudy darkness,” said LopezDeVictoria. “I don’t know how it works! And the conjuring of words, spelling/spell-casting, is a wonderful exercise in that mystery. I signed up to celebrate that with my fellow islanders!”

The competition ran for nearly three hours and LopezDeVictoria competed against two dozen fellow spelling hopefuls, who tackled words like trepanation, cribo, disembogue and macropterous. Second place went to Shane McRoberts and third place to Douglas Hageman.

Ray’s Pharmacy donated prizes and Joe Cohen and Martha Farish sponsored the event so it could move to the OC, where artistic director Jake Perrine provided sound effects.

Despite some tears, overall, the contestants were good sports. Several competitors were visitors who came to Orcas to see friends only to discover their hosts had signed them up for the bee.

“A common theme is redemption,” said organizer Sam Gailey. “Many contestants lost in a spelling bee in middle school and were seeking to finally take the top prize.”