On Nov. 3 an intrepid quartet of Harker teachers placed third in the fifth annual Silicon Valley Trivia Challenge, held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. The contest is a fundraiser held by the Junior League of San Jose, and Chris and Marcia Riedel of Hunter Labs (and former Harker parents) have kindly sponsored the Harker table since the contest’s inception in 2008. Finalists each year, Harker placed third in 2009 and second in 2010; all three times Harker has donated its winnings ($1,000 for second, $500 for third) back to the Junior League.

The Harker Eggheads – Linda Felice (middle school English), Brian Larsen (K-12 production manager), Tony Silk (upper school math) and Paul Vallerga (middle school technical director) – were one of 47 teams. After the preliminary elimination round of 20 questions on subjects like pop culture, chemistry, astronomy, geography and literature, Harker was one of only two teams with a perfect score. In the semifinals, no team was perfect, but Harker had 13 of 15 questions correct and easily made the finals. (It seems that “tittle,” the word for the little dot on a lowercase English i or j, stumped the room.) The final 10 teams held on, with a five-round sudden death finally determining this year’s first and second place winners: a group of friends from Santa Cruz who also won last year, and the team from NBC Bay Area, who called themselves La Triviata. The winner was finally determined by the team who could name the greatest number of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands.

Each year this fun event includes a costume contest, raffle drawings and cocktails and dinner, and is overseen by master of ceremonies Mike Inouye of NBC Bay Area and trivia question judge Lawrence Stone, the tax assessor for Santa Clara County, who handles the good-natured “boos” accompanying his introduction and judgments with aplomb.

Many thanks to the Harker Eggheads for representing the school so well!