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Trivia marathon to challenge listeners
By Adam Johnson
Published:
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Mountain Dew and pep pills will be the snacks of choice next weekend as hundreds of St. Cloud residents get set to burn the midnight oil. Weary eyes will spend hours buried in books and scanning endless Web sites for elusive answers. No, it's not time for midterms yet; it's time for KVSC-FM's 24th annual trivia contest.
The 50-hour trivia marathon will kickoff next Friday at 5 p.m. and run straight through to Sunday evening. Participating teams will receive questions from every category imaginable and will have to use every resource they can find to obtain the answer before it's given out over the air.
"It's going to be awesome," Charlie Carlson, an SCSU graduate working on the contest said.
This year, the contest is based around the theme Viva Las Trivia. Many of the questions will relate to topics such as gambling, "sin city" and "the rat pack."
This is only the latest in a long line of creative trivia themes, past versions of which have included Night of the Living Trivia, Trivia Trek and the T-Files.
Last year, the marathon boasted 69 teams, including 12 teams that played by long-distance telephone and three that participated over the internet. 2002 turned out to be a record year for teams, almost three times the number that had participated during the contest's inaugural year. And, if past trends continue, this year will feature an even larger group of determined knowledge-seekers.
The contest's often-fanatical team members have been known to go to great lengths to answer some of the harder questions the contest designers spring on them. Last year, a question involving a judge's "unique sentencing option for minor offenders" prompted dozens of teams to call the judge at his home in North Dakota in order to obtain the answer. Reached for response, the judge said that he was happy to provide the answer.
Team members also have a history of getting so far into the contest that they dress up, adopting a guise related to their team's name. After the winners of the contest are announced, awards are given to the groups with the best and worst team names, which have included the Voodoo Dolls, Vandalay Industries and last year's winner, Animal House.
Last year, an award was also given for "Ballsiest Challenge Acceptance," which last year went to Super Heroes in Training for successfully kidnapping another team's mascot.
However, none of the fun this marathon spurs can happen without the
dedicated volunteers who work non-stop to make sure the contest goes off without a hitch. Some have spent the past few months devising the
near-impossible questions the teams will have to answer. Others will spend the weekend diligently keeping track of the team's scores, while still others will man the phones, taking calls from team members submitting their guesses.
The trivia staff is poised and ready, but they could always use more
volunteers.
"Anyone can join," Carson said. "It's a lot of fun and you meet cool people, not to mention you get plenty of free food out of it."
In addition, UTVS will be airing the contest simultaneously with KVSC on
television, filling the 50 hours of air time with as much clever original
programming as they can muster. During the less exiting moments of the marathon, expect to see a number of off-the-wall segments, including magic tricks, eating contests, and parodies of some of the more popular reality-based TV shows today.
So, who will win the coveted Minnesota Masters of Trivia Traveling Trophy? Only time will tell, but for many who have been involved with the contest for years, it's about much more than winning.
"For me, it's a once a year family reunion," perennial participant Cari
Ness said. "It's the only time I get to see some of these people."
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