Some clubs at Carlmont are well known around the community, but only one club stars on television.
The Carlmont Quiz Kids Club, run by seniors Brandon Whiteley, Sandip Srinivas, and Josh Fagel, plays “Jeopardy!” style games full of random trivia and stars in televised recording two to three times a year.
“I found out about the club at the beginning of sophomore year and was immediately interested in the events and practices that Quiz Kids did,” said Whiteley. “I am a long-time fan of “Jeopardy!” and other quiz shows, so the club seemed like a good fit for me.”
Quiz Kids incorporates game-show activities at a high school level. Meetings are held on Fridays in room D23 and consist of trivia questions for 30 minutes, answered by students equipped with buzzers and a score keeping mechanism.
“There’s no preparation; we just bring our brains,” said senior member Jack McDowell.
The club is very low stress and its number one priority is to provide some fun for trivia-loving students. Senior Raj Aurora said, “I just compete for questions. There’s no preparation, it’s just fun to be right.”
Now in its twelfth season, the Quiz Kids television show, on local stations like KRON-4, gives the club something to strive for each year. These televised competitions consist of teams from local schools with three to four contestants each. It is played very similarly to “Jeopardy!” except that there are teams instead of individual players competing.
To make meetings more exciting, Srinivas said, “We try and keep people interested by using themed questions in certain weeks (i.e. Harry Potter week), and bringing food and prizes to meetings.”
The club also hopes to have a student vs. staff game at some point during the school year.
However, the club mainly consists of seniors and may have difficulty sustaining itself next year. “This year we have been working hard on recruiting underclassmen. Our secretary this year is Kelly Olivier, a sophomore who was on the team last year. Through her, as well as other underclassmen, we know from sports and extracurriculars, we have amassed a fairly substantial basis of underclassmen who can continue the club next year.” said Whiteley.
To students who love random trivia and have always wanted to star on television, the Quiz Kids Club might be a great place to start.