STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAU) — The World’s Largest Trivia Contest is back. It’s a contest heard on the college radio station WWSP 90 FM at this time every year, as well as online and on the college’s local access TV station. The teams compete from Friday night until Sunday night, and have the length of one or two songs to call in the correct answer to the question along with their team identification.
Teams often organize in the Stevens Point area for the weekend, but there are teams that listen and play online from all over.
This year marks the 47th year for the contest. Trivia coordinator Jim “The Oz” Oliva says he makes sure to source his questions from places other than the Internet. “I’d have to throw every question out if I took it off the Internet, because the Internet is the largest source of misinformation.”
Oliva says 90FM and the organizers of the contest are moving towards more community outreach off campus. “People just hung around and started playing Trivia, now they don’t even know what it’s about. So getting them involved in it, and understanding what it is, is part of the education that we have to go after this year.”
Oliva says they’ve made a great effort to get people excited in The Contest this year. “Getting public relations and promotions going for it, social media, trying to excite people about it, going out into the public schools and parochial schools in town to get kids excited about Trivia.” The questions can be about almost anything.
Along with the questions read by the college radio announcers and guest hosts, there are questions based on pictures in the New Trivia Times paper they print every year, and they also have traveling “Trivia Stone” puzzles where they have to follow clues around town to reach the answer.
Trivia is the major fundraiser for the 90FM college radio station, based in the UW Stevens Point Communications Department.
by Larry Lee & Raymond Neupert
