Harker had a great time for a great cause Saturday, coming in second place at the third annual Silicon Valley Trivia Challenge, and donating their winnings back to the host, Junior League of San Jose, for their charitable work.
Held Nov. 7 at Club Auto Sport in San Jose, and mentioned in the San Jose Mercury News the next day, this entertaining fundraiser for the Junior League’s worthwhile education-based charitable work featured county tax assessor Larry Stone as judge and NBC news weatherperson Mike Inouye as the affable master of ceremonies. The first two years of the event Harker sent two faculty teams; this year the school sent one faculty team and one alumni team. The faculty team, Harker Eagle Eggheads, was composed of Brian Larsen, upper school performing arts; Lisa Masoni, middle school Latin; Stacie Newman, middle school English; and Anthony Silk, upper school math. The alumni team, Harker’s Lean Green Knowledge Machine, consisted of Christina Yan ’93, Harker’s alumni director; Ramesh Srinivasan ’93; and Ab Belani and Edward Hejtmanek, both ’06 and employed at Somaxis, a start-up in the health, wellness and fitness industry.
Teams were encouraged to dress in costume and bring props, and the clever themes, raffle drawings, tasty food stations, audience participation opportunities, beautiful cars on display and smooth organization by Junior League volunteers all added up to a winning event.
After the first round of 20 questions half the teams were eliminated, and a second round eliminated all but the top few. Both Harker teams had a great time answering questions on history, pop culture, sports, literature and music, with the faculty team ultimately winning second place and the alumni just missing placement in the top three. Harker promptly donated the $1,000 prize money back to the Junior League to support their community work.
For more information about the event, and the Junior League of San Jose, visit http://www.jlsj.org/sanjose/npo.jsp?pg=home, and save the date for next year’s event: Sat., Nov. 5, 2011.