Saturday evening in Hempstead Hall the first of what many said they hoped would eventually be a series of such events took place, a team competition in trivia. The one Saturday was called Nacho Average Trivia Night and the funds raised from admission costs, a silent auction and payments for mulligans during the contest were earmarked for Carter’s Class and the Hope Robotics Program.
Carter’s Class is the name of a campaign by Carter Wilcox, a fifth-grader at Clinton Primary School who began raising funds last year to help his class of students there buy books at the school’s Scholastic book fairs. As the night began, Wilcox said he had raised $2,000 so far and that a program that had begun with covering the expense of books for only his class has expanded now to allow kids from all of Clinton Primary to have books. The next Scholastic Book Fair is in October.
In addition, funds raised in Saturday night’s event, which was attended by about 75 trivia players will help support the Hope Public Schools program in robotics. The goal for the night was to raise $5,000. The event ended up raising $5,530.
Hosea Born, a teacher at Hope Academy of Public Service who is also involved with HAPS’ robotic program was host for the evening. His questions struck trivia aficionados as challenging, well-written and often tricky. A question like “What is Arkansas’ leading crop?” might at first be answered with chicken, perhaps Arkansas’ most famous export because of Tyson being based here. But the true answer, because of Arkansas’ near-tropical climate and rich soil, is rice.
Born said he took pride in producing questions of that sort. He has been presiding over trivia games in Texarkana already, he said, so he used the format of those games for Saturday night’s event, which he has been helping to prepare since May. “Then I was working with Carter’s folks to get sponsorships, selling tickets and tables and just getting folks out,” he said.
The evening involved a sumptuous nacho bar and a silent auction that included such items as vacation cabin rentals, a Nespresso Coffee maker, tickets to a Pros versus Joe’s football game in Little Rock, gift cards to local restaurants, prints of Steven Walden paintings of Darren McFadden and Dolly Parton and a pair of the late Razorback quarterback Ryan Mallett’s cleats worn while on the Houston Texans’ roster. The winners were announced at the end of the evening. The names of winners of a raffle and door prize were also read. Born said, “Raffle tickets for a two-night cabin stay for 12 on the Caddo will now be sold at Main Street Cleaner's or Facebook for $20 or 6 for $100 with a limited number for sale to bring the event to a close.”
Saturday night’s winning team was the Red Hot Trivia Peppers. They beat out the second place Brainy Bunch by just a few points for the $500 cash prize. But the frequent sounds of cheers and laughter made it clear every team member enjoyed themselves, win or lose. Several teams arrived in costumes that suited their team names to claim bonus points in the trivia game. Carter Wilcox himself joined the Team Superhuman Smarts, whose members dressed in costumes as Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Dr. Bruce Banner….starting to get a little angry, Dr. Strange, Cat Woman and Black Widow. Carter was Zeus.
Born said he enjoyed hosting the competition, though it was not planned. He stepped up when the planned host learned a new grandchild was immediately on the way. He said he is already thinking of the next such competition. “Next year we can get the word out a little earlier. We wanted to do our first one to figure it out. Next year we can hopefully continue the tradition on,” he said.
Carter's Class and the HopeBots' Booster hosted the event with help from Rocktown of Hope.
