If the Super Bowl doesn’t rate as your idea of a fun Sunday afternoon, the Sheldon Museum has an alternative – Chilkat Valley Jeopardy, a test of local trivia patterned after the popular TV quiz show.
It’s a fund-raiser for Sheldon Museum and starts 4 p.m. at the Chilkat Center.
Organizers say they have the bugs worked out from last year’s inaugural event but have kept crowd-pleasers like “commercials” for local businesses between rounds performed by the Haines High School drama, debate and forensics team.
As on television, members of the audience will see the questions, which will be projected on a large screen behind contestants. New this year, a kids’ round will be featured for youths through eighth grade.
“It should be lots of fun. People really enjoyed it last year,” said Blythe Carter, museum operations coordinator.
Audience members are eligible to win prizes by answering questions that stump the teams on stage and by having their names automatically submitted for raffle prizes.
Nine, three-person teams will compete and cash prizes of $50 per player will go to members of the top adult team. Winners of the junior round will get $20 each. Competitors will be drawn from audience members wanting to play. Admission is $10 for adults, $25 for a family, and $5 for kids under 12.
Organizers invited participants to form their own teams this year, but none have come forward, Carter said. “Lots of people have expressed interest so we’re just going to draw names like we did last year.”
Improvements from last year’s game include penalties for wrong answers and a better method of settling ties after a wrong answer.
Carter said the event’s electronic switching system couldn’t distinguish between second- and third-place hits to the answer buzzer, so following an incorrect answer, a coin-toss will decide which remaining team gets to field the question.
Categories of questions focusing on the Chilkat Valley will include “people,” “military,” “industry and business,” “sports,” “clubs,” “geography,” “Tlingit culture” and “potpourri.” The latter is a grab bag of assorted questions from all categories. “It’s all local stuff,” Carter said.
Haines businesses donated sponsorships for teams as well as prizes for contestants and audience members, Carter said. Residents familiar with the TV show “Jeopardy” – which requires players to respond in question form – should feel right at home. “Basically, it’s all the same rules of the TV show, but we’ve condensed it here and there.”