The Annual Great Midwest Trivia Contest

spiffUPDATE: see the wrap up below.

Trivia, you say? Why yes:

The Midwest Trivia Contest, webcast by Lawrence University’s internet radio station WLFM (http://www.lawrence.edu/sorg/wlfm/), was founded in 1966 by J. B. deRosset, ’66, and each January offers 50 consecutive hours of questions such as “What is the Minnesota state muffin?” and “What was the name of the first American hotel with indoor plumbing? (answers: blueberry and the Tremont House in Boston, respectively).

My affiliation with Lawrence University is nonexistent, but as it is located in Appleton WI, the home town of some of my dearest friends in college, I am what you might call a veteran of Lawrence Trivia. My participation in recent years has been lax, but our team, the Hobgoblins of Little Minds typically ranks among the top scorers every year.

And now, Haibane of Little Minds, I ask you to join us. Are you potentially going to be bored at all this weekend? Have a few spare moments worth spending in trivial pursuit? Then tune into WLFM’s live feed of the Trivia Contest, and if you know an answer, post it below in the live chat room below. Our Trivia Mavens are standing by!

UPDATE: Well Trivia has ended, and the Hobgoblins took fourth place, ties for our best showing ever. Much respect to the worthy opponent teams such as Trivialeaks, Scott Pilgrim vs. The Superbad Iowans in Revolt, and Trivia Pirates Arrr!. Final scores will be posted to the official Trivia blog.

Along the way, we scoured the wierd corners of the Internet, from Tarvuism to stuffed animals with mental disorders. And of course, much food and fun was had by all, and sleep had by few.

Here was the final Super Garuda question, whose answer I will not reveal, as a challenge to you all 🙂 After all, in accordance with Trivia Tradition, this will also be the first question of next year’s contest:

What was log entry on Sept 29th 1961 at 2PM PST in the Alamo Airways Daily Log at McCarran International Airport?

4 thoughts on “The Annual Great Midwest Trivia Contest”

  1. Hey- I came across this searching for info on the Super Garuda. All I can find is the newspaper article in the Appleton Post Crecent and your blog. It’s bugging me. Even with the answer to the question I still cannot find any information anywhere about this. Any ideas as to what in the heck it’s about or where i might be able to find out?

  2. I’m not sure what you mean – what is bugging you, and what can’t you figure out? the answer to the Garuda? That’s the point, right? 🙂

  3. Ok, I want to know the relevance to the question and how anybody in the world would have gotten it if it’s nowhere on the internet. I thought everything was on the internet. I know the Garuda is supposed to be obscenely difficult…I just thought that once I had the answer I’d be able to find something more about it and I just cant.

  4. ah ok i see what you meant now. Basically for Trivia you need to be willing to go the extra mile. Not every answer is on the internet – you might need to get an answer from a library, or a reference book, or sometimes picking up a phone. Trivia is about good google searches, in part – but also more.

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