Advantage Controls team repeats Trivia Challenge win

Feb. 5—Self-proclaimed know-it-alls, school supporters and fun-seekers packed Hatbox Event Center on Friday for the Education Foundation of Muskogee's Trivia Challenge.

A team from Advantage Controls placed first for the second year in a row. Connors State College placed second and Cook Construction/Cook Brother Investments placed third.

Teams win by correctly answering questions posed in six categories, including culinary traditions and dance movies.

Advantage Controls President Jeff O'Neal said they repeated last year's win because "we probably got lucky."

O'Neal said their strategy is "luck, luck and more luck — and lots of time on Wikipedia."

"We read it cover to cover every year," he said.

This year's team included a member from Down Under, Dave Venamore.

"I traveled from Australia for this," Venamore said. "I'm a trivia champion from Sydney, Australia. Unfortunately none of the questions were Australian, so I wasn't very happy. No koala or kangaroo questions, unfortunately."

Venamore said he doesn't know of anybody from Advantage Controls ever going to Australia for a trivia challenge.

Foundation Board President Angela Wilson said all 47 tables available for the challenge were sold out. The event also raised money through a dessert auction, silent auction and sale of table decorations. The silent auction featured gift baskets, as well as artwork from Sadler Arts Academy second-grader Meredith Carey and print work by a Sadler first-grade class.

"Money raised tonight goes back into the schools," Wilson said. "Teachers and schools apply for grants. The board goes through them, then we'll select grants that go back into the classrooms, different projects."

Some individuals and donors have grants named after them, Wilson said.

Cherokee Elementary librarian Gina Batie and Cherokee third-grade teacher Gena Whitaker said they benefitted from Foundation grants.

"We wrote a grant together last year, Book Buddies," Whitaker said. "We work with Boulevard Christian Church, and they come in and read with our third-grade students. It helps us improve our reading scores. It has improved our reading scores, just by having an adult come in and read with them, other than me or their parents."

Batie said she "100 percent absolutely" appreciates grants from the Education Foundation.

"They have poured in thousands of dollars, probably tens of thousands of dollars into Muskogee Public Schools, and all the teachers appreciate it."

Last April, Foundation representatives distributed $37,577 in grants to 10 schools.

Tom Carment, whose team took third place in 2023, said before Friday's event that he wasn't going to push his team to do better.

"We're going to be humble and we're going to accept whatever happens," Carment said. "If you're humble, it doesn't matter what happens."

He said just pure luck helped them place in 2023.

"We don't have any real skills, it was just luck," Carment said. "We keep having luck. We don't have a strategy. If we do have a strategy, it's that we have a diverse group. If we had young people, we'd have a diverse group. The youngest in this group is about 45."