From the Stevens Point Journal April 8, 2006:

Participants, organizers ready to go

By Brandi Pettit
For the Journal

Those who have watched the trivia contest on television have often seen Jim "The Oz" Oliva wildly playing air guitar and jumping around in front of his microphone.

It's not just a show for the cameras.

Denese Mace, left, and Amy Scott put on their dunce caps for their team Slow Children Playing in the Trivia parade. Thomas Kujawski/Stevens Point Journal

In the final minutes before "Trivia 37: The Odd Contest" began, the Oz was racing around the WWSP 90FM studios, carrying boxes, moving papers, and giving last-minute instructions to his assistants.

He finally took a moment for himself to dance around in glee as he looked through some of the records selected to be played through the weekend, which often include novelty songs from the past few decades.

There were tables of sandwiches, cookies and other goodies in the hallway, and everyone was trying to catch up on dinner, including WWSP Business Director Denise Conrad.

"We started preparing for this (trivia) in January," said Conrad, 28.

"Things are pretty crazy here today with the start of trivia," Conrad said. "Monday was really busy, too, with registration."

One team had a member's mother come into the studios to pick up some Trivia 37 T-shirts.

Karen Biasca of Stevens Point says she used to play trivia, but now she just helps out other teams with the answers.

"We stayed up all 54 hours once," she said. "But I just can't do it anymore."

"I'll be listening all weekend, and helping out with the questions," Biasca said.

Everyone involved with the project was bursting with excitement, including Oz's question-writing partner, John Eckendorf.

"It's been a part of my life since I was 6 or 7," said Eckendorf, 41.

"Now it's a part of my family's life, too."

Eckendorf has been writing questions with The Oz for 18 years, and played the game for 12 years before that.

He says the final questions are written about three weeks in advance.

"We need that leeway to re-read the questions a few times, because we can always have a mistake in there," said Eckendorf, who can be seen on television in the orange shirt monitoring the phone room.

One of the past mistakes is directly related to every year's initial question, the answer to which is always "Robert Redford," or sometimes simply "Bob."

This tradition comes from a question The Oz asked several years ago: "In 1976, who was appointed sewer commissioner of Provo, Utah?"

Oz was convinced that Robert Redford was the correct answer, but the name of the city was wrong, and now Oz keeps Redford in mind each year, as a long-running joke with trivia players.

Just a few minutes before 6 p.m., the Oz settled down in his chair before the microphone, then dashed back up again.

"Got to go get the questions!" he said, scurrying out of the room, past the discarded "days till trivia" sign on the wall.

Just a few minutes after 6 p.m., a group of Oz's assistants, mostly university students, sat around the room and sang along to one of the traditional trivia theme songs, "Born to be Wild."

The room fell silent as Oz welcomed the entire city to this year's contest.

The welcome was heard in houses throughout the city, including the one where Pastafarian Phrogz were headquartered.

"We've got radios in every room," boasted team member Luis Casanova. He and his girlfriend, Laura Melvin, have played with this team for three years.

"We've also got the three computers," he said.

Casanova's house was filled with every manner of fake frog one can think of -- including stuffed animals, cookies and spinach dip inside a frog-shaped bread.

"We found out about Pastafarians on the Internet," said Casanova. "Some guy invented a religion that connected pirates and global warming, hence our pirate outfits."

Casanova and Melvin expect about a dozen members to filter in and out of the house throughout the weekend, and have devised a system for sleeping.

"We've got one girl upstairs right now -- it's her turn to nap," said Casanova.

"But we'll be going all day and all night."

Eckendorf said the trivia contest always has a staff of 18 volunteers who man the phone room, as teams call in their answers.

Four boxes of answer sheets sat on the end of one table. With the start of each new question, the correct answer is written at the top of each sheet. When teams call in their answers, their team I.D. numbers are written down only if their answer is correct.

More than 400 teams registered for this year's trivia contest, with more than 11,000 team members on hand. Teams like the Pastafarian Phrogz rely heavily on the Internet, and need every edge they can get.

Eckendorf's advice for this year's trivia teams: "Notes. Keep your eyes peeled," Eckendorf laughed. "The players will know what that means."