Raymond H. “Bud” Somerville was the answer to one of Oz’s 1985 trivia questions concerning the elite sport of curling. Bud is the first member of the U.S. Curling Hall of Fame. He led the United States to its one victory in the Scotch Cup, in 1965, and to the first of its victories in the Silver Broom, in 1974.

By the way, we got the question wrong back in 1985:

It’s hour 22, question 4 and the Oz launches a big 50 pointer asking who was the first inductee to the U.S. Curling Hall of Fame. A couple of our brighter team members immediately belt out “Bud Somerville” apparently having some curling knowledge in their memory banks. So we are about to phone in this answer when we took a fatal turn: we decided to “verify” our answer to make sure we were correct. To do so we cleverly elected to call THE Bud Somerville at his home in Superior. We eventually get him on the phone  and ask him straight out, “Hey Bud, were you the first inductee to the U.S. Curling Hall of Fame?” Much to our dismay, he politely explains that it actually wasn’t him.

Wisconsin Public Television's Wisconsin Stories video on Bud Somerville: Bud Somerville, the Babe Ruth of Curling running time 2:36 Copyright WPT

After thanking him for his time, we proceeded to phone in our next best guess and wait for the correct answer to be announced over the radio...“and for 50 trivia points...Bud Somerville.” We were all shocked and outraged. “Get on that Complaint Line and read Oliva the riot act; This one is tossed for sure. What’s the matter with those idiots?”

But wait, let’s call Bud back. “Hey Bud, they announced the answer that you WERE the first inductee into the Curling Hall of Fame.” Bud’s infamous answer? “Oh, I’m not THAT Bud Somerville. Sorry.” We’d called the wrong Bud Somerville (and not a very wide-awake Bud Somerville at that) and blown 50 big ones. Well, we didn’t get the points, but we got a story.