On Friday, February 27th, the 6th annual Trivia Challenge took place at the Santa Cruz Civic Center. The doors opened at 6pm–an hour before the trivia started–to allow some time for people to talk, look at the raffle prizes, listen to the live solo guitar, and a plate of free food. At 7pm–after some announcements by an organizer–the master of ceremonies, Dale Julin, started the night off with the first trivia question.

The number of people who attended was so small that our numbers did not even fill up half the seats. Yet the many of the people who attended were into the trivia and followed along by answering questions in small notebooks, which were supplied along with pencils.

The audience “definitely doesn’t fill the auditorium,” said Hal Hansen, a teacher at PCS and the captain of our team, “I don’t know whether there are more participants or spectators.”

From 6-7pm, everyone socialized, bought raffle tickets, set up their trivia tables, and bought a drink if they wanted one. Dale Julin and the judges were also there, available for last minute questions or just to introduce yourself too if you wanted too.

At 7pm, the trivia started with the first round, consisting of 30 questions and 20 seconds to answer them. Dale read each question aloud twice which the judges kept track of time and told you when the time was up.

When the first round, there was a break so that the audience and the teams could get some dessert and look at the winners of the general raffle prizes.

After the break, the second round began and it had 20 questions with a time limit of 29 seconds per question.

Hansen commentated about the goal of the team is to “not humiliate ourselves in public,” something which they often succeed at. Along with that, the PCS team typically tries to come in around “5th out of 40 teams.” Hansen believes that he doesn’t “have to win” but at least avoid “terrible humiliation.”

Every year the Rice family pays the 300 dollar entry fee for the PCS team–a deed much appreciated–but the members of the team often changes. “It changes a little bit every year,” said Hansen, “I’ve always been on it and Mark Bernand has always been on the team.”