Tuesday, October 16, 2012

SOUTH PACIFIC QUIZZING 1973 chapter 165


Since Bill and Faith connected with me through Bible quizzing, it was impossible to avoid some quizzing connection while I was in their church. And I was glad to do it. Having been out of the program for a year, it was good to be back.
I could not get to every practice, but went when I could. I taught them some new ways to practice to make their weekly meetings a little more fun. I went with the team and the Rouses to the International Competitions in 1973. I read the report of the competitions in Alliance Life, Oct. 10, page 24-26.
The competition was once again held at St. Paul Bible College where Dr. David Rambo was the primary speaker. It was great to see him and get connected, as he would be my boss in one more year. The meet was his first experience and he said, “I can’t believe the who-o-ole thing.”
Dan Rinker wrote: “The caliber of quizzing we witnessed at the finals this year created cxcitemen1 hard to top. By comparison, the Minnesota Twins game, which all of us attended Saturday afternoon. Was pretty drab. But an after-game event made up for it. By prearrangement Al Worthington,
Jim Kaat and Jerry Turrell shared with us their faith in Christ. Jim Kaat, as you know, is a Twins pitcher. He had, in fact, pitched the game we just saw. Al Worthington is a pitching coach for the Twins. And Jerry Turrell is a rookie utility infielder. Each of them spoke enthusiastically of how Christ related to their lives and used them both on and off the field.
This year brought together some 125 persons for what proved to be the greatest demonstration of Bible quizzing in living memory. We got our first idea of what the competition was going to he like early Thursday morning. A three-way quiz between South Pacific, Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain was finally settled on the twentieth and final question by Rocky Mountain when the tie score was broken with a ten-point error deduction against Jim Kingsley of South Pacific.”

South Pacific did not win but they set the tone for what Dan Rinker called the most exciting championship quiz ever. Here’s his description of that meet.

“With Eastern. Western and Northwestern in the finals, it proved to be a super exciting contest. Western easily won the first quiz. But that left Northwestern and Eastern tied at the end of the twentieth question. In a five question over time Jennifer did her thing, answering two of the five questions.
But Eastern took the other three questions for an undisputed second place win. And then Northwestern went on to win the second quiz with ease. Thus Eastern had to come hack and win the third quiz or it was all over.
On the twentieth question in that quiz Western and Northwestern were tied. 11O points each. Eastern appeared to he out with only 90. But Steve Reihsomc. A veteran of two previous years of championship competition got the jump for Eastern on the twentieth question to throw the qui7 into a three-way tie. Then in the five-question overtime with help from Steve's teammates, Eastern went on to win the quiz.”

Bible quizzing was a big deal in the South Pacific and it was fun to be part of it for a couple of years. 1974 comes up next.


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