'Diesel' takes top trivia honors

Day One 9:44 p.m.

Only hours after the KVSC Trivia Weekend hit the airwaves, tension ran high, brains became scattered and the smell of pizza pierced the nostrils in the KVSC studio as numerous volunteers and staff diligently kept the Trivia Weekend alive.

"This is my 14th trivia that I've been a part of, I've been doing this a lot of years," Jim Gray, director of operations at KVSC, said. "So there's a lot of people down here, we're used to it, we know what to expect."

Since the Trivia's conception in 1980, when only 25 teams participated, it has grown in popularity and notoriety within the St. Cloud community and surrounding area.

"This year is a little bit larger than usual. It's a record breaking number of teams; we're at 80 teams," Gray said. "We added more teams, we added more phone lines, which means we need more volunteers on the phones, which means we need more pop, more food, more score sheets printed off, but it's good that we're growing and keeping up with it great."

Much of the increase in Trivia involvement is because of the larger awareness from the area. KVSC has implemented a bigger advertising campaign through billboards, newspaper ads, podcasts and print media features, Gray said.

Day One 10 p.m.

Without the relentless help of volunteers, the KVSC Trivia Weekend may likely not have a spot in radio history. Their dedication is applaudable, they are the ones behind the scenes answering thousands of phone calls.

"This is my sixth year," said Aaron Anderson, a volunteer at the KVSC call center. "I've done phones and tech support."

Many trivia enthusiasts find it equally rewarding to volunteer and help out for this event. Camaraderie is often built within the volunteers in the same manner as participating trivia teams.

"It's a lot of fun. It's good for the radio station and it's a good thing to do for the community," Anderson said. "I drove up from eastern Iowa to do this."

As a call center volunteer, the members use code names in order to remain anonymous and in the case of scoring discrepancy or confusion.

"This year there's 80 teams, they're assigned a team number, they call in and say 'this is team number 46 and question number three is this,' and if they're right you tell them their points and whatever your code name is," Anderson said.

Day Two 7:01 p.m.

With nine questions every hour, 18 for a speed round, trivia teams often feel the intense pressure of keeping up with savvy questions and working against the clock. How do some teams cope with 50 grueling hours of non-stop trivia? Take a look.

"We try not to over prepare. If you prepare too much you're usually setting yourself up for a fall," said Dan Tollefson, team captain for the Voodoo Dolls. "We could prepare more, but it wouldn't be as much fun."

The Voodoo Dolls have played since 1996 with only four members and within those 12 years have seen themselves grow into a competitive force among the participating teams with currently more than 40 members.

"We're in ninth place right now, but we'll move up a little bit is what my hopes are. We'll see," Tollefson said. "Our house is only so big. We like our friends here and we just have fun with it, and we do as good as we can with what we have."

KVSC Trivia is something completely different to be a part of and the opportunity to meet a number of new people keeps the Voodoo Dolls coming back year after year, Tollefson said.

"The people that come aren't always the people that we hang out with all the time, but everybody looks forward to this and we love the team stuff, we have fun. It's a community thing in my mind," he said.

Day Two 7:29 p.m.

This year will mark KVSC's 28th Annual Trivia Marathon, but it will also commemorate the new coming of first-year team Meyer Meyer Pants on Fire.

"This is our first year as a team," said Tim Meyer, a member of the Meyer Meyer Pants on Fire team. "But most of our members have done this between four and eight years."

The team may lack official experience as a team, but have had no big issues concerning their infancy as trivia participants.

"We're doing about how we expected. Things have actually been going surprisingly smoothly for us for being our first year," Meyer said. "We haven't had any major troubles, knock on wood. We're very satisfied this year how things are going."

When asked if the team would participate again next year for the Trivia Weekend, Meyer responded eagerly and confidently.

"Definitely, we are planning on it," he said. "It's a great tradition, it something great to do as a group."

Day Three 6:32 p.m.

Sunday continues with the third consecutive day as trivia teams traveled around the world with fried brains, major sleep deprivation and boiled over coffee pots.

Meyer Meyer Pants on Fire held their own as their first year as a team together.

"For being a first time as an actual team I think we did great," Meyer said. "We had a lot of new people who've never done this before and they've really pulled things together."

The team expects that they have placed in the mid-20s and are very happy with their projected results.

"We definitely met our expectations, we were hoping we would do better, but we did really well, we're very proud of how we did this year," Meyer said.

As the team awaits for the award's ceremony at the Ritsche auditorium at SCSU, they relish in their efforts and are happy to finally bring the trivia weekend to a close.

"It's tiring, I mean we're all just sitting here staring, getting grumpy and irritated, but it still feels worth it," Meyer said."It still feels like we succeeded."

Day Three 9:16 p.m.

The 28th annual KVSC Trivia Weekend brought a packed house to the awards ceremony at Ritsche Auditorium Sunday night.

Pull-Start Diesel took home the gold, winning with 13,980 points, and will be able to boast to the Minnesota Masters of Trivia traveling trophy for the first time.

"It's our first year winning, this our eighth year playing and we've been sort of working our way up every year," said Adam Lanz, a team captain for the Pull-Start Diesel team.

The entire occurrence was an awesome and surreal experience as the KVSC Trivia Weekend winners, Lanz said.

"I lie in Colorado now and I flew in on Friday night and I'm flying back out tomorrow morning and I come just for trivia," Lanz said. "And more than anything, I think it's just about getting our family and friends together, and just having a really good time all weekend."

Lanz offered some words of wisdom to future teams wanting to become involved in the trivia marathon.

"Just have fun with it, we have fun pushing ourselves trying to get to the end," Lanz said. "It's not really about winning for us, it's just about having fun."