Great Midwest Trivia Contest

The contest begins at 10:00:37 p.m. on the Friday of the last full weekend in January.[http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080124/APC04/801240613/1029 Weekend of trivia is serious business]{{Dead link|date=January 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}; Ed Berthiaume, January 24, 2008; The Post Crescent, Retrieved January 27, 2008 It ends at around midnight on Sunday for a total of approximately 50 consecutive hours.{{cite news|title=Trivia contest champs win by one question|date=February 2, 2010|publisher=The Post Crescent}}[http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080127/APC0101/801270606/1979 LU trivia competition spans generations]; January 28, 2008; The Post Crescent, Retrieved January 27, 2008 Students are appointed "trivia masters" and they administer the contest. Every year, a new lead trivia master, called the "Head Master," is appointed by the previous Head Master. The Head Master has the final say on any disputes.

About 12 Trivia masters make up the questions,{{cite news|last1=Patterson|first1=Kara|title=Crazy for Trivia|publisher=The Post Crescent Weekend|date=January 22, 2009|pages=4,5}}{{cite web|url=http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/good_day_wi/gdw_wluk_combinedlocks_lawrence_trivia_200901221219_rev1|title=Trivia junkies convene for annual competition|last=Kelly|first=Angela|date=January 22, 2009|publisher=WLUK|accessdate=2009-01-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110711022021/http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/good_day_wi/gdw_wluk_combinedlocks_lawrence_trivia_200901221219_rev1|archive-date=July 11, 2011|url-status=dead}} and teams are given 3 minutes to answer each question, which is done via telephone and Discord. Students volunteer to answer phones during all 50 hours of the contest. All teams that answer the question receive its points. Most questions are worth 5 points each. In the early years of the contest, teams researched using massive numbers of books; now teams find answers using computers on the internet. At the end of the contest, several difficult questions called garrudas are asked. Teams are given 10 minutes for the first two garrudas.{{cite news|last=Patterson|first=Kara|title=All Things Trivia|newspaper=The Post Crescent Weekend|date=27 January 2011}} The final, most difficult question – dubbed the "Super Garruda" – is worth 100 points and teams are given 30 minutes. The endeavor is governed by the Trivia Credo: "Trivia is meant to be entertainment and should be perceived solely in that light." The teams with the highest scores are declared the winners in on-campus and off-campus categories, receiving prizes such as pink plastic flamingos and stainless-steel bedpans. The Great Midwest Trivia Contest is known as the "World's Longest Running Trivia Contest" because of its custom of having the university's president ask the previous year's Super Garruda as the first question of the next year's contest.{{cite web|title=Trivia returns to Lawrence this weekend|url=http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/local/fox_cities/great-midwest-trivia-contest-returns-to-lawrence-university-january-25-27-2013|publisher=WLUK-TV|accessdate=January 26, 2013}}

Questions used in the past include "What was Holden Caulfield's middle name?" and "In 2004, which nation drank the most coffee per capita?" (The answers are "Morrisey" and "Finland," respectively.) The 2009 Super Garruda was "Who was going to be married next to what was the "World's Largest Cedar Bucket" in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in June 2005, before it mysteriously burned down the week before the wedding date?" (answer: James Walters and Jaki Neubauer).{{cite news|last=Anderson|first=Cheryl|title=Lessons in Trivia|newspaper=The Post Crescent|date=January 23, 2012}} In modern times, internet access has changed the way questions are written. Examples from the 2024 contest include "This primate was named after an anarchist critical of a linguist who shares a surname with the Simpsons character who said "steamed hams". What was the longest sentence the primate ever said?" and "This state house's original dome was metal-plated by the founding father who rides alongside the protagonist of Assassin's Creed III. What lies in its House of Representatives chamber, whose speaker pro tempore shares a last name with the ring name of the wrestler who had a cameo in Rocky III?" ("Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you" and "Sacred Cod," respectively) On-campus teams are occasionally asked to do special action questions such as composing a love song or doing a dance routine based on a theme.

The contest was founded in 1966 by James Bailey deRosset as an alternate for a serious academic retreat with professors (called "Encampment Weekend").Question #141, 2009 Great Midwest Trivia Contest question{{cite web|url=http://blogs.lawrence.edu/news/2009/01/|title=44th Annual Lawrence University Trivia Contest Puts Spotlight on the Offbeat, Little-Known|date=January 19, 2009|accessdate=2009-01-25}} deRosset visited his girlfriend at Beloit College; he was disappointed with Beloit's trivia contest and had ideas on how he wanted to improve on their contest. deRosset spoke with his friend, Junior Dave Pfleger, who worked at WLFM and arranged airtime.{{cite news|last1=Anderson|first1=Cheryl|title=Not trivial: Lawrence U's Great Midwest Trivia Contest celebrates 50th edition|url=http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/289662641.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150127125729/http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/289662641.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 27, 2015|accessdate=January 27, 2015|newspaper=Star Tribune|date=January 24, 2015}} The first contest consisted of questions in four categories (television, rock 'n' roll music, comic books, and movies) that were written by deRosset and his friends. The first question asked in 1966 was "Who was Superman's father?" (answer Jor-El). The first winners received a broken refrigerator as their prize.

It may be the oldest college-based radio trivia contest in the United States. Lawrence's inaugural edition on April 29, 1966, predates both the presumed May debut of the biannual Williams College Trivia Contest by a week or so and the February 1969 debut of the Stevens Point Media Trivia Contest by three years. However, the precise date of the first Williams contest is not known; before its playing schedule was standardized, spring semester Williams Trivia games were sometimes held as early as February and March.

Teams originally had to be within about {{convert|30|mi|km}} to receive the FM signal for WLFM.{{cite news|last1=Jones|first1=Meg|title=Lawrence University's trivia contest thrives in the age of Google|url=http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/lawrence-universitys-trivia-contest-thrives-in-the-age-of-google-b99429093z1-289364891.html|accessdate=January 23, 2015|work=Milwaukee Journal Sentinel|date=January 21, 2015}} The radio station changed to internet broadcast and the first internet-only contest was held in 2006.

The 50th annual contest was held in 2015 and it featured teams as far away as Sweden.{{cite news|last1=Cheung|first1=Ariel|title=50th edition of Great Midwest Trivia Contest golden|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/27/50th-edition-of-great-midwest-trivia-contest-golden/22387745/|accessdate=January 27, 2015|newspaper=Washington Post|date=January 27, 2015}} The question difficulty had grown significantly because the teams could quickly find answers to simple questions using Google and the internet. Several Head Masters and deRosset returned for the contest. The contest had amassed over 18,000 questions in 2450 hours of competition by the end of the 2014 contest. The 50th contest featured one question per hour taken from a previous contest.{{cite news|title=WISCONSIN NEWS ROUNDUP: Oldest college trivia event starts Friday|url=http://www.piercecountyherald.com/news/3661541-wisconsin-news-roundup-oldest-college-trivia-event-starts-friday|accessdate=January 27, 2015|publisher=Pierce County Herald|date=January 22, 2015}}

The 56th annual contest was held in 2021, and was held virtually instead of on WLFM radio as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.{{cite news |title=Great Midwest Trivia Contest goes virtual at Lawrence University |url=https://fox11online.com/good-day-wi/great-midwest-trivia-contest-goes-virtual-at-lawrence-university |access-date=January 30, 2021 |agency=WLUK-TV |date=January 29, 2021}} The contest was streamed via Twitch. Contestants submitted results via a Discord phone answering system as well as a Google form instead of solely via telephone. This method continued to be used for the 57th contest.{{Cite web |last=Kernan |first=Megan |title=Hundreds participate in Great Midwest Trivia Contest for 57th year |url=https://www.wbay.com/2022/01/30/hundreds-participate-great-midwest-trivia-contest-57th-year/ |access-date=2022-03-21 |website=www.wbay.com |date=30 January 2022 |language=en}}

The 58th annual contest was held in 2023 and saw the erection of the "Trivia Flag" on the cupola of Lawrence University's Main Hall, an ode to the year's theme: pirates.{{Cite web |title=Great Midwest Trivia Contest on Instagram: "HOIST THE TRIVIA FLAG #GMTCLVIII #Yarrmadillo" |url=https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn0I2KPu42h/ |access-date=2023-01-25 |website=Instagram |language=en}}

The Lawrence trivia contest has been written about in Playboy,[http://www.subtrivial.com/trivial/trivia/Playboy78.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070529132609/http://www.subtrivial.com/trivial/trivia/Playboy78.html|date=2007-05-29}}; Contesting Trivia; Playboy magazine reprint (page 28); Retrieved January 27, 2008 USA Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, The New York Times, and most of the newspapers in Wisconsin. The 1984 Head Trivia Master, John Landis, '84, appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America." Paul Harvey asked a question in the 1978 contest: "I’m Paul Harvey. Now, for five trivia points where is the International Armadillo Confab and Exposition held? Gooooood Day!" The answer was Victoria, Texas.

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.lawrence.edu/sorg/trivia/ Lawrence Official Site]

{{Lawrence University}}

Category:Lawrence University

Category:Trivia competitions