Speed, Accuracy’s Just Her Type : A Champ at the Keyboards Thrives on Work at 166 W.P.M.

The world’s fastest typist passed through town the other day, in celebration of National Secretaries Week.

Or maybe it was America’s fastest typist. Or maybe she used to be America’s fastest typist.

Whatever, Betty Baird is fast and she is in great demand.

The nation’s highest-powered bosses, though, can eat their hearts out. Baird works only as a temporary (or temp) these days. Even though temping has cut down her speed--to 140-odd words per minute--Baird prefers it that way. For that matter, she doesn’t even have to work, temp or otherwise. The kids are nearly grown and Baird’s husband does just fine, thank you, as an electrician/carpenter--”and a good one.”

It’s simply that Baird likes the work. So much so that she’s actually turned down higher-paying jobs because “there wasn’t enough to do.”

For now, Baird sits, erect but comfortable, before one of three IBMs in the Montebello Town Centre and does her thing. A small crowd gathers, marveling at her dexterity.

Baird does not frown as she works, nor does she smile. She concentrates, fingers flitting across the keyboard in the manner of a champion boxer throwing a jab--as an extension of the brain. Although she types faster than most people read, or even speak, Baird does not chat during a demonstration. She lets her fingers do the talking.

Baird is on tour as ambassador for Western Temporary Services, which this week is holding its annual typing competition. The top 40 from countrywide eliminations--accuracy counts as well as speed--will type-off in May for the grand prize: a trip for two to Hawaii. The top three in Montebello will get cash prizes, but everyone who enters comes away with a coffee mug, a compact mirror and a little chocolate typewriter, all emblazoned with the logo of Western--which, not so incidentally, is shrewdly lining up prospects.

By 1 p.m., the fastest of about 25 contestants has managed 102 words per minute with 10 errors, for a net of 82. Second-fastest is 91 w.p.m., 5 errors: 81 net. An itinerant newspaper reporter, concentrating, of course, on accuracy, makes no errors at all. His speed is 31 words per minute.

Eight years ago, when she was working full-time and still had her rhythm, Baird tapped out at 166.

At 46, she is trim, prom-queen pert behind the specs, and soft-spoken, a striking contrast to the Gatling racket of her typing machine. Aside from three or four trips a year for Western, she is a year-round, lifelong West Virginian with a country-roads cadence to her life and only one regret.

“If I had known what the world typing record was,” she says, “I would have gone for it. What was the record? What is it?”

Not Even Western

Nobody really knows. Not even Western, which promotes its contests annually and only knows that no contestant has come close to Baird’s 166. The Guinness Book of Records says, “The highest recorded speed attained with a 10-word penalty per error on a manual machine is: One min.: 170 words, Margaret Owen (U.S.A.).” A later edition avers, “In an official test in 1946, Stella Pajunas, now Mrs. Garnand, attained a speed of 216 words per minute on an IBM machine.” No mention of errors, if any.

“Hey,” says Cyd Smith, manning the phones at Guinness’ New York headquarters, “are you kidding? That was 42 years ago. We know nothing about any Pajunas. Anyway, we no longer carry records for electric typewriters because it’s impossible to make comparisons.”

At the Montebello mall, nobody has ever heard of Stella Pajunas. Baird says she is “vaguely familiar” with the name Margaret Owen. It is generally agreed that Owen, who must be in her 90s, could hardly challenge Baird now.

Gwen Ragan, a Montebello secretary who’s come to try her hand at the contest, couldn’t care less. She seems transfixed by Baird, who is skimming away at the lilt and speed of light opera. Baird is on cruise at 135. (By contrast, the Gettysburg Address is 271 words long. Lincoln took four minutes to deliver the speech. Baird can type it in two with her eyes closed.)

“I do maybe 90,” Ragan says, “and I thought I was fast, but look at that! That’s magic! That’s spooky!”

Betty Baird is anything but spooky--except possibly when she’s talking, somewhat reluctantly, about her rare skill. “I try to read and absorb what I’m typing,” she says over coffee. “It makes me more valuable as a secretary.”

As for her near-legendary accuracy (which she prizes above speed), she finds it “hard to explain. Something in my head is telling me whatever I run through my brain and onto the paper had better be right. I can be really concentrating and if I make a mistake, I don’t ever have to look. I can tell.

“It’s like being in a semi-trance sometimes. When you stop and think what you’re doing, all of a sudden, you’ll be making mistakes.”

Mistakes? “Oh sure,” she says, “with certain sequences of letters, like E-I. I know how to spell the E-I words, but sometimes my fingers don’t.

“Then there’s the word flexibility. It blows my mind when I type it. It’s the way the T and Y are right together on the keyboard. Also--and Western will kill me for this--the word temporary. I just flub it.

“Of course, you have to have a good vocabulary, a knowledge of grammar and punctuation, but in my day, English was stressed in high school and college.

“The speed, though: Maybe it’s hereditary. My father ran a restaurant and he could type a menu--with two fingers--faster than you could smell it.”

At the mall, Diane Leslie of San Gabriel is gaining on Baird’s father: 91 words. “I’d have done better but I heard my bosses giggling,” she says. Two vice presidents of First American Bank of Rosemead have come along to kibitz. “The speed doesn’t matter,” says Alfred Ayala; “she’s the best.” “Absolutely,” echoes Mike Matthiessen.

Evelyn Gasca of Rialto shrugs off her 63 words per minute with seven errors. “Where I work (Pacific Coast Drum Co.),” she says, “I get three days to do a letter. There’s a lot more to the job than typing. My main function? I’d say it’s keeping track of things and protecting my boss.”

“There is a lot more to being a good secretary than typing,” Baird says, “and I don’t mean getting coffee--though that doesn’t bother me a bit.

“You’ve got to be able to handle a variety of assignments, work with a variety of people and get along with them. Your attitude, how you present yourself, can make a boss look good or bad. You’d be surprised at how many offices you walk into and the attitude is: ‘What do you want?’ I hate that!”

Baird is a semi-permanent fixture these days at the West Virginia legislature, where she often works for state Senator Dan Tonkovich. “He’s considerate, but he’s on the ball. He likes to get things done right now, which is the way I like it.

“I can’t stand to sit around. I worked for a large company and made more money--it was very prestigious--but they only asked for one letter a day, maybe two. I’d much rather work all day, even for less money. I’ll never be caught reading a book or doing a puzzle. If there’s no work, I’ll seek it out. I make fewer mistakes when I’m busy.”

Baird is paid $12 an hour, “not really enough” for a skilled, if temporary secretary, but “the pay is improving, along with the status of the job.”

And if someone put up, say, $100,000 to determine the world’s fastest typist? Would she go for it?

“You’d better believe it!”

And her chances?

“Pretty good!” Baird says.