Capital Times (Madison, WI) 
April 22, 2002

 HEADLINE: 2 CITY MEN TRIUMPH IN TRIVIA CHALLENGE; 
    SOME TEAMS COMPETE IN POINT, SOME ON NET 

 BYLINE: Andrea N. Kinsaul, Correspondent for The Capital Times

 DATELINE: STEVENS POINT 

 Question: Education is the best thing that can happen to
 someone, even to cartoon characters like Pepper Ann. What is
 the name of the principal at Pepper Ann's middle school? 

 Answer: Mr. Hickey. 

 Along with more than 11,000 other trivia buffs, Barry Heck and
 Ray Hamel of Madison trekked to Stevens Point over the
 weekend to spend 54 hours tackling such questions in what has
 been dubbed the "World's Largest Trivia Contest." Of course,
 some of the traveling was virtual; this was the first time in the
 contest's 33 years that questions were posted on the Internet. 

 But for Heck and Hamel, who participated on a team known as
 the Network, it was worth being there in person. For the second
 year in a row, Network blew out the competition. Made up of
 former Stevens Point residents, Network scored 8,265 points,
 making it the winningest team ever. 

 CNOF Hour of 54 Bud Strikes Back came in second with 7,470
 points; Graduates of a Lesser God came in third with 7,260
 points; Tin Man came in fourth with 7,210 points; and Harry
 Beer Pig and the Trivia Stone ended up in fifth place, with 7,070
 points. 

 Competitors from Ithaca, N.Y., Galveston, Texas, and Tacoma,
 Wash., also took part in the contest that ended Sunday night,
 said organizer Jim "Oz" Oliva of WWSP, the University of
 Wisconsin-Stevens Point radio station. The contest is a
 fund-raiser for the student-operated station. 

 In all, 11,036 players competed for 456 teams. 

 "They were pretty avid, into it. They didn't go to sleep. There
 was always at least one person from their team up, and they kept
 calling in questions," a bleary-eyed Oliva said early today. 

 This year's 85,792 correct answers were "far and away the
 all-time high," said John Eckendorf, who spent about three
 months writing the 432 questions aired eight an hour starting
 Friday evening. 

 Heck and Hamel have been participating together on the
 12-member Network team since they met at a Colorado trivia
 contest in 1985. 

 This year's theme was "Trivia 33: All in the Contest," from the
 late Carroll O'Connor's character Archie Bunker on "All in the
 Family." 

 Teams collect points several ways, including trivia questions,
 running questions and music questions. 

 The most interesting were the running questions, in which
 thousands of players ran/walked the Stevens Point streets in
 search of scavenger hunt answers. Some players brought
 ladders, tape measures and walkie-talkies in order to get the job
 done. 

 Heck, a computer programmer, said he begins preparing for the
 event at least two weeks in advance, when he begins compiling
 notes and shelving books collected over the year. 

 While he certainly enjoys winning, Heck said the best part of
 the event is renewing old ties with participants who live as far
 away as Boston, Tennessee, Los Angeles, and New York. 

 "It's fun, and it's the only time we can get together," he said.
 "It's like a reunion, because we've all known each other for at
 least 20 years and we don't get to see each other often." 

 The Network headquarters is located in the basement of Heck's
 parents' house and is stockpiled with several thousand
 reference books, three Internet-ready computers, a television,
 sleeping cots and an extensive TV Guide collection. 

 "It doesn't matter what books you have, but if you know what's
 inside them is what really counts," Hamel said. 

 Hamel, a special collections librarian for the University of
 Wisconsin and author of the "New York Times Trivia Quiz
 Book," says he likes and is better at writing trivia questions
 rather than answering them and that is why "my notebook and I
 are inseparable." 

 Despite the fierce competition, Hamel said that he and his
 teammates have managed to keep the game fun. 

 "If it's not fun, there's no point to it," he said. 

 While some players make it through the entire 54 hours without
 sleep, Heck and Hamel were running on about two and a half
 hours between the two of them. 

 Oliva said the final question was his favorite, one of only about
 three questions no one knew the answer to: "What is the
 profession of Ern Berck?" 

 The answer comes from the movie "The Magnificent Seven," in
 which Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner take their hearse by a
 sign advertising Ern Berck's blacksmith shop. 

 "We knew nobody was going to get it," Oliva said.