Friday, November 30, 2001 10:56 PM
By: Karen Ocamb
What may have started out as an outreach effort quickly dissolved into fun, frivolity, and a few slightly embarrassed egos when five L.A. Press Club Board members sat down to play at the Asian American Journalists Association’s 20th Anniversary Celebration Trivia Bowl.
The packed Sept. 28 event, held in a sound stage at the new KABC-TV studios in Glendale, was hosted by KABC anchor David Ono, with support from AAJA-LA president Denise Poon (Dateline NBC) and Vice-president Denise Dador (KABC). AAJA’s signature Trivia Bowl raises money for the group’s scholarship, intern and development programs.
“In the wake of recent events, it’s important to have a sense of community,” said Poon, whether that’s centered around an ethnic community “or completely irrelevant information.” To further that sense of community, AAJA-LA’s Pauline Yoshihashi sponsored the LAPC’s team table, which was shared with four members of the L.A. chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
LAPC’s Jim Foy, Alex Ben Block, Diana Ljungaeus and Chris Woodyard and I joined NLGJA-LA chapter president Scott Gutman, Gina Bowers, Kevin F. Sherry and me acting as table captain, in answering enough questions correctly to place the team in 17th place out of 45 teams. Honorary Board member Tony Kinkela played with the 9th place Black Journalists Association of Southern California, girded by a sports trivia buff.
Organizers brilliantly segued from the pall of the World Trade Center tragedy to the game by making the first two questions about Osama Bin Landen and Pakistan. The sound staged hushed as Ono asked a range of difficult and tricky questions, then buzzed with muffled whispers as teammates hurriedly wrote down answers. The winning team of attorneys scored 57 out of 80 questions.
Rarely have such smart people felt so stupid, except perhaps answer-rife Quiz Kid Sherry. But there were some indelible moments. Bolstered by Ljungaeu, Foy insisted that the first regular TV broadcast in the U.S. was in 1939, but he was overridden by those who believed it was 1946. It was 1939. The only question left blank during four rounds of 20 questions was, “Who are the Power Puff Girls?” Not a clue.
