From USA Today April 19, 2007:

Town Runs Marathon of Minutiae

The Dad's Computers team is set for the annual trivia contest, a competition that attracts 12,000 people in more than 400 teams. Starting Friday, the competition will consume this town of 24,000, as it has for almost four decades.

The contest runs for 54 hours straight over the weekend. Many players stay up all night scrambling to find answers to obscure questions. It's a reunion, a fundraiser for the radio station at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a battle for trophies and bragging rights.

Bill Schleizer, 28, a Dad's Computers member who works for a non-profit environmental group in Chicago, says he lets himself "go crazy" as the contest approaches. "When you start explaining it to a normal person, they usually give you an odd look," he says.

About 25 people will gather in Bamberg's basement for the contest, taking turns sleeping. Other team members, including one in Alaska, play via the Internet. Family members who are upstairs preparing food for the players watch the action below, thanks to a webcam.

Eric Hamus, left, Vanessa Castrodes, Adam Johnson, Patty Johnson, Gwyn Kawski, right, prepare for competition in Stevens Point, Wis.   TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE Questions posed in previous Stevens Point, Wis., trivia contests. Answers appear at the bottom of the page: 1. What is the first and last name of the professional baseball player whose signature is on the baseball bat used by Wendy Torrance when striking her husband, Jack? 2. After home football games at this university, you head to the center of town. If the home team wins, you help toilet-paper trees at Toomer's Corner. What is the name of this university? 3. The Guiding Stars Limited is a fictional club where members spent their time getting autographs of the stars. What is the first and last name of the president of this club? 4. What is the name of the homemade rocket ship built by the owner of the fictional Jettison Scrap and Salvage Co.? 5. This television series claims that on Sept. 16, 2005, the unthinkable happened. What is the name of this series? 6. On the back of a bottle of Newman's Own Caesar dressing, there is a drawing of Caesar, lying on his death bed, with a knife in his chest. He has the typical comic bubble of text above his head. What is this expiring Caesar saying? 7. What is the fragrance that Steve Carell told Will Ferrell he was wearing when presenting the 2006 Academy Award for Best Makeup? 8. Assistant bookkeeper Sam Wilson gets a paper delivered to his home the morning after his employer is found dead. The paper contains a story about the death, saying it was an apparent robbery. When the paper is delivered, the comics section of the paper is on the outside. Which comic strip is face up? 9. One of the many stories on Lost is how Kate masterminded a bank robbery. She was not really interested in the money. She was more interested in the contents of an envelope in a safety deposit box. What is the item in that envelope? 10. In Game 5 of the 2003 World Series, in the top of the seventh inning, the Marlins' manager and trainer came to the mound to look at a blister on the pitcher's finger. What song was played on the organ during that moment? 11. What is the occupation of Ern Berck? Source: Jim Oliva, Stevens Point trivia contest

"It's better than Christmas," says Adam Johnson, 23. Players often describe big events in their lives by citing the contest year. He met his wife, captain Patty Johnson, when a friend invited him to join the team for the 32nd contest.

The challenge began in 1969 as a way to attract new listeners for the student-run radio station, WWSP-FM, It bills itself as the world's largest trivia contest. Each team pays $30 to participate; there are no limits on the number of team members.

Teams accumulate points by calling in the correct answers to eight questions read on the air each hour. They have the length of two songs to find the answer and call it in. More points can be scored by identifying snippets of music and participating in scavenger hunts. Players race around town following clues that lead them to landmarks and businesses.

'Off season' exercises

A team called the Beer Pigs gathers in the back of Jadeco Stamps & Hobby for the duration of the contest. They've got a 5,000-book library and stacks of board games. Mark Kowalski, 40, a claims technician who's playing his 26th contest, is organizing the team's secret database. Many players spend the "off season" taking notes while watching TV and movies as they try to anticipate questions.

"When I was single and taking a date to a movie, I got some interesting reactions when I started taking notes," says Marv Hafenbreadl, 46, an energy consultant. There are 25 or 30 Beer Pigs, most of them friends who bonded at hockey games while attending college here. "We're a bunch of average goofballs," he says.

The team's best finish was fourth place in 1992. Despite their name, they don't indulge in beer until 10 p.m. on the Sunday of the contest. "It puts you to sleep too easily," Hafenbreadl says. Both men used to stay up for the entire 54 hours, but when they started hallucinating, they decided they had to sleep for a few hours.

Kowalski says players have to stay sharp: They often have to get on the phone in an intense rush to chase down answers. One year, he called a Seattle hotel in the middle of the night to see whether anyone knew the ingredients of a candy bar sold only in that city. He found someone who did.

Boon for the town

Bob Helgert, 58, a Substation team member, recalls the year teams called the Vatican to find an answer. The retired teacher says schools avoid scheduling tests the Monday after trivia weekend because students stay up late.

"The whole thing is crazy," he says, "but it's a huge economic shot in the arm for the town. Hotel rooms are booked, food sales go off the charts."

Some teams eat pizza and junk food all weekend. Others, such as the Cakers, live it up. "We're kind of notorious for our excellent food and our all-night celebrations," says Shannon Semmerling, 32. Her husband, Wayne Semmerling, prepares gourmet meals for the team. On this weekend's menu: beef, shrimp and veggie skewers; ginger and sesame scallops with mojito marinade; pork with guava glaze.

Triviatown, a documentary about the contest, was filmed from 2001-2006. Cinematographer Patrick Cady, whose wife is from Stevens Point, says it could be released this year.

Joe Oliva, 61, a retired math teacher, has been writing the questions since 1979. The job includes the title "Oz."

The questions, he says, come from "anything I do, anything I watch, anything I read." He collects resources all year and starts writing questions in January with help from John Eckendorf, a former player.

The contest was more fun before players could Google clues, Oliva says. "But believe me," he says, "there's a lot that's not on the Internet."

There are always some easy questions and plenty of obscure ones. The answer to the first one every year is "Robert Redford." That's because in the first contest he wrote, Oliva included a Redford question with incorrect information. Oliva's dream first question would be to have Redford himself asking, "What is my name?"

"That would be incredibly cool," he says. Oliva says he wouldn't want to compete in the contest. "Not on your life," he says. "It's too much work."

Trivia answers

1. Carl Yastrzemski (in the 1980 movie The Shining).
2. Auburn
3. Joan Lyons (from the 1943 movie The Youngest Profession).
4. The Vulture (from Salvage 1, a 1979 TV series).
5. Threshold
6. Don't Dilute Us, Brutus.
7. Pineapple Bliss
8. Dick Tracy (from the 1949 movie Strange Bargain).
9. Toy airplane.
10. Billy Joel's My Life
11. Blacksmith (No team got the correct answer. In the movie The Magnificent Seven, stars Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen drive their hearse by a sign advertising Ern Berck's blacksmith shop. The sign is on screen for only a few seconds.)