Land of 10,000 Stories: Trivia Weekend

If you know how much a flea weighs or how much a Big Mac costs in Paris, your calling may be awaiting you in St. Cloud.

Trivia weekend was started as a winter diversion for dorm-bound students at St. Cloud State University back in the early 1980s. Three decades later it has morphed into a monster.

"I've called trivia, 'The Beast,'" says Jo McMullen-Boyer, station manager at KVSC, the campus radio station that organizes and broadcasts the event.

This year?s 50-hour trivia marathon ? held the second weekend in February ? attracted an estimated 2,500 players distributed among 80 teams.

Few of them are on campus anymore. These days, most teams are based in houses in the community or play remotely from other parts of Minnesota or in some cases from across the country. "It's a rush, it's an event," says Deb Duffy, who hosted a 60-person team known as "Learned Pigs and Fire Proof Women," in the basement of her Sartell home.

Hundreds of reference books fill shelf space along one basement wall, while two dozen computers are spread among players in two adjoining rooms. The din only subsides when another question is broadcast over the radio.

Nine times an hour, players lean into the radio for queries such as, "Please give us the name of the cologne James Woods' character wears in the 1997 movie 'Contact'" The answer is, "Polo."

On the other side of St. Cloud, Dan and Jan Gallagher are trivia refugees, spending the weekend in a hotel so their son's friends could set up a trivia war room in the Gallagher home.

"Really, who cares what the answer is to me," says Jan. "But they do." Tom Lanz gave up his house too, so his grown children could host their trivia team called "Pull Start Diesel."

Halfway through the contest, with the team in first place, Tom could be found working the phones, caught up in the contest, and calling in answers.

"Everybody knows about the trivia contest in St. Cloud. Everybody does," he said. Trivia weekend is definitely not about the prize money ? there is none. The winning team takes possession of a cracked traveling urn, a few gift certificates and a box of t-shirts.

"You're lucky if you're from a team, you have 60 people on your team, you may come out of it with a coupon to get some tacos," says McMullen-Boyer. "It?s not what you win, it?s that you win," says 14-year trivia veteran Theresa Oberuc, a member of the "Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women" team that won the contest last year.

Bragging rights go a long way in the trivia contest, but others say it?s more about getting together with old friends, some who travel from around the country to participate.

By hour 50, emotions are frayed, homes are trashed and at the radio station, pizza boxes are stacked from floor to ceiling.

When the last question has been answered, this is one competition where champions won't go to Disney World. They'll go to bed.

To learn more about the history of Trivia Weekend, visit the KVSC web site. The link is above.

So, think you're a trivia champ? See how you stack up against the competition during Friday's lunchtime live.

Click here to see some of the questions and answers

By Boyd Huppert, KARE 11 News

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