MISQUAH — The school board voted Monday evening to give the district spelling bee a name, a date, and a color. Beginning this fall, the contest will be the Doris Knutson Spelldown, held the last Friday of September in the Lakeside gymnasium, open to grades three through six, with the winners’ certificates printed — by direction of the only specific clause in the motion — in green ink.

Mrs. Knutson, who taught fourth grade in this district for thirty-eight years and died June 11 at ninety-three, held a spelldown every Friday afternoon of her career. Alumni of those Fridays, a group that now includes most of the town over forty, recall that the winner earned the privilege of cleaning the erasers, and that it was, mysteriously, a privilege. Nobody interviewed for this story could explain why. All of them wanted it anyway.

Superintendent Dale Brandt, who sat in her fourth grade in 1978, spoke briefly before the vote. “She made you want to be called on,” he said. “I have spent an entire career in education trying to work out how she did it, and I am prepared, this evening, to report failure.”

The vote was six in favor, none opposed, one abstention — the abstaining member explaining that he still cannot spell “rhythm,” has never once needed to, and saw no cause to celebrate the whole business. The board accepted this in the spirit offered and moved on.

There will be no entry fee. “Doris would not have heard of it,” Brandt said, and the line went into the minutes unchallenged, which is not something the minutes usually permit.

A pronouncer has not been named. Several retired teachers have already declined, citing nerves, which the board found either touching or telling, depending on the member. The words themselves will come from Mrs. Knutson’s own Friday lists, a carton of which survives in the district office in her handwriting — the same green ink. Anyone who ever received a postcard from her knows the color. This newspaper, which keeps a shoebox of them, can confirm it survives decades without fading, which is more than can be said for most of what gets written down.

The first Spelldown is set for the last Friday of September, doors at one o’clock. The champion receives the certificate, the handshake, and — by arrangement with the custodians, who wax the gym floor each summer and guard it accordingly — the eraser privilege, restored for one afternoon only. Families are invited. Bring your own definitions.