A 10 out of 10 Trivia Night
April 24, 2023
On Thursday night, the 13th of April, State High Student Government held its second annual Trivia Night in the C2 open classroom. Six teams competed: The Big R, Menacing Geese, Falafel, The Science team, Hufflepuff, and Twi-hard Fan Club. Overall, 29 students attended and answered questions from five categories – Arts & Entertainment, Sports, Current Events, Childhood Movies, and State High.
Each category was divided into three levels – easy, medium, and difficult. Depending on the difficulty of the question, the teams could earn one point, two points, or three points respectively. An element of surprise was also mixed into the categories; a wild card question. Teams could wager any amount of points before the question was revealed, and if they answered correctly, they were awarded that number of points. If they answered incorrectly, the number of points would be deducted.
Final score for all the teams were The Big R with 85 points, Falafel with 84 points, Twi-Hard Fan Club with 82 points, Hufflepuff with 79 points, The Science Team with 78 points, and Menacing Geese with 70 points.
The winning team, made up of seniors Grace Shang, Sam Ikenberry, Nolan Powell, Jakob Stafford, and Brian Capone, received a trophy as a token of their win. However, the team almost did not exist.
“I was sitting with Isabella in Econ, and she was like ‘You know what, Sam? I think you should sign up for Trivia’. So then, about 15 minutes later, I was sitting at lunch, and I was like ‘You know what? I’m going to put a team together’. So I sent out some texts, I recruited my girlfriend, and then just like that, The Big R was born,” Ikenberry shared. “The more that I look at it, this is the happiest I’ve felt in years.”
Other team members shared the same sentiment. Shang described her experience as “phenomenal,” and Capone said his experience was the “highlight of my life.” Stafford reflected on the experience by stating, “[it was]the best night of my life.”
The entire night would not have been possible without the hard work of the Student Government. President Isabella Caceres was a part of the Trivia Night planning process, which had a diverse to-do list.
“A lot of it was making sure that we had the materials for refreshments, decorations, and also reserve the space. We have a really chill planning schedule, just as a team on Student Government. It wasn’t really a high-stress situation. We knew [that] everyone who was to come was going to have fun. We did work a lot on advertising because surprisingly fewer teams signed up this year. But, whoever came definitely had a blast, and I hope people account for that for next year,” Caceres said.
The idea behind the Trivia Night links back to the divide present in students as they transitioned into post-Covid life last year.
“Last year, it [Trivia Night] was started because Tobias and also just as students in the high school, we kind of noticed that we had a very disconnected environment, and not everyone understood each other or cared for each other. Everything was just very separate, and we wanted to do something that kind of brought a lot of different groups together in an unexpected way,” Caceres explained. “We planned this Trivia Night last year, and it was such a smashing hit last year, we had a waitlist of teams. We just knew we had to do it again.”
The fun was not just limited to Student Government and The Big R. Although she was on the losing team, sophomore Aubrey Olson still had an amazing time.
“It was honestly a lot of fun and I don’t really care that we got last. It was just really fun to hang out with the people. It was [also] really fun to kind of come up with the answers as a group–especially for the harder questions. On a scale of 1 to 10, [I would rate it] a solid 10,” Olson said. “I wish I had done it last year. I was making fun of it, like ‘Who would want to do that? It seems so boring.’ But it was so much fun. As long as you have a good group of people, then it’s a fun time.”
Even as a planner and the MC, Caceres enjoyed the entire night.
“I would rate it a 10 [out of 10]. Planning [with] my team is really really fun. We’re really good friends, and it was just spending hours hanging out with your best friends, and that was obviously a major part of the whole experience leading up to [Trivia Night],” Caceres stated.
Trivia Night was planned to be a fun night for students to interact with students they normally don’t interact with and give them the space to have fun while showing off their trivia knowledge. Whether or not the students were on the winning team, it was still an amazing time for everyone.
