Trivia costs plenty from out of town
Phone calls can create big bills

By Barbara Martin
Central Wisconsin Sunday

STEVENS POINT - Trivia fans who play the game from far-flung locales can run up a hefty telephone bill making queries to find out answers to questions like what is the first ingredient in Snapple.
"That's the only disadvantage, the long-distance calls to grocery stores," said Sue Hay, one-half of A Lavish Display of Ignorance, a trivia team that plays out of Port Edwards.
Although the majority of the 456 teams and 11,036 players who take part in the annual contest of minutia do so from Stevens Point, there are plenty of folks who play a long-distance game.
This year's Trivia 33: All In the Contest kicked off Friday evening and will continue until midnight today. The 54-hour contest is broadcast on WWSP-FM (89.9).
Matt Rickl, who plays with the team What It Is! from his Milladore home, avoids long-distance phone charges by using his cell phone to answer questions. For Rickl, the annual event is a chance to renew old ties.
"It's my one opportunity to get together with my high school and college buddies," he said.
Not all of the out-of-towners play the game from out of town. Most members of Graduates of a Lesser God hail from points far afield, but they borrow Stevens Point resident Kevin Grasam-kee's house for the question marathon.
Among them is Stephanie Rogers of Lansing, Mich., who got her first taste of the Trivia bug as a high school student in the 1970s when she moved to Stevens Point from Michigan. She later moved back to Michigan.
"I have been hooked ever since," Rogers said. "If you're the type of person who likes to play along with Jeopardy! or Beat the Geeks on television ... Trivia is right up your alley."
Lisa Koenigs of Milwaukee is captain of the Graduates of a Lesser God. She used to work at WWSP.
When the team got its start 15 years ago, it consisted of members who had attended the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point together, she said.
Over the years, members brought friends into the group. Some folks stayed. Others drifted away.
"We kept the friends of the friends of friends," Koenigs said.
Among the new friends is 13-year-old Billy Engelhardt of Whitewater. He heard about Trivia from friends Rick Ohde and Lisa and thought, "I've got to try this."
He and Danielle Larson of Madison, who got her start playing Trivia five years ago as a fifth-grader, bring youth to the team. True Trivia buffs say a multi-generational team is key to scoring well in the contest.