With a slue of long-standing traditions from the dodgeball tournament to the Senior vs. Faculty basketball game to the Mr. Longhorn competition, the class of 2020 is hoping to add another annual tradition to the calendar, a student trivia night Jan. 21.

To compete students must gather in groups of eight and pay an entry fee of $15 per person.

“Some of the parents of the class of 2020 want to start thinking about the senior activities, the post graduation party and different thing they fund raise for,” freshmen class principal Mario Pupillo said. ”Four years can fly by pretty quickly, [so] they wanted to start a trivia night that could become an annual event and raise funds for that.”

The idea for the night was first thought of by Kelly Jenkins, mother of two sons, Ben Jenkins and Alex Jenkins, in the freshmen class.

“Mrs. Jenkins has been the main person organizing the trivia night. She came to me and Mr. Kessler and ran the idea past us. Then we got the ok by Dr. Mitchell and have been planning it since then,” Pupillo said. “Mrs. Jenkins has worked with the West Parents Organization (WPO) and the parents in that organization to help raise some of the prizes, to get some of the donations, to help advertise and things like that.”

Prizes will be awarded to the winning table, best table theme or costume, and more.

“From what I know, there are a lot of gift cards to food places, like Mod Pizza and Global Quesadilla. But I think there are some other prizes getting donated that I don’t know about yet,” B. Jenkins said. “I just look forward to laughing and trying to see how many questions I can get.”

Doors open to the event at 5 p.m., and the competition with begin at 6 p.m.

“One of the big parts I’m looking forward to is that, instead of being by ourselves, we get to be a whole table. So we get to interact with those people and it’s will be a group effort and that really plays into the fun of it,” A. Jenkins said.

The questions for the trivia night are being written by math teacher Patrick Mooney, who has participated on the trivia show, Jeopardy.

“This is about the 40th trivia night that I have written, so I have a whole bookshelf of just trivia books at home,” Mooney said. “So I draw a lot from there, but then I also draw from my audience, so knowing this is a lot more high school centric, I was trying to think of what type of categories I could write that would be of interest to those students.”

In addition to the money raised from the table fees, additional money can be donated to the class of 2020 during the event in exchange for raffle tickets to more prizes.

“Whether it’s for a charity or it goes directly to a class like this one, anytime you can marry having fun with raising some money, I think that is when you start to get to breed the success of those events,” Pupillo said. “I think for example the dodgeball tournament is just so much fun that it has taken off and has now turned into a tradition more or less, or is at least down that path. And I think what we will hopefully see is that the trivia night can start to become one of those things too, where it is a night the people look forward to on a yearly basis.”

Beyond just raising money, the trivia night is designed to bring the students and teachers closer as a community.
“It is goofy, it is fun, it a chance for kids to be together, and build a sense of community,” Pupillo said. “Getting kids in the building together for a reason other the academics add an element to what this place means to you and it is for a good cause.