The roadmap to victory in the Stupor Bowl

DIXON – I need a map. Specifically, a map of Dixon.

It seems that's the only way I am going to be able to contribute to a multitude of questions at the Stupor Bowl about Dixon.

The Stupor Bowl fundraiser is held every year on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. Money raised benefits the Dixon Schools Foundation.

I competed in my second tournament Saturday as part of the Sauk Valley Media team. Our team did just fine: we won one of our three matches.

I'm happy to say we had a great time competing. We held our own, even beating the Dixon Public School Board of Education.

Back to the map.

We were faced with a teamwork question. Identify four streets that surround the Loveland Community Building in Dixon. Our team came up with First, Second and Hennepin. That's is the extent of my knowledge of Dixon streets in that area.

A map would have helped.

Next time, I will get a map of Dixon and memorize as many streets and major locations as I can. It might help me prepare for questions about old Dixon buildings and buildings on the National Historic Register.

As was to be expected, Ronald Reagan was the man of the day. There was an interesting question about cities on the Ronald Reagan Trail, other than Dixon or Tampico. Fulton and Peoria Heights were acceptable answers.

But before the next Stupor Bowl, I also would brush up on local trivia and tidbits. Such as, what are the zip codes and area codes of cities like Fulton, Oregon and Harmon?

There definitely were questions our team did well on. We were well versed in U.S. presidential history and a handful of entertainment and geography questions.

I'm pleased to report I knew Avatar is the highest-grossing movie of all time. We also nailed a 20-point question for the four letters of the alphabet that do not begin a name of a state. The answers, not including the given X, Y and Z, are E, B, Q and J.

I'm glad we could represent the newspaper at the competition. Although we didn't make it all the way, we certainly know what we need to do next time. Time to curl up with an atlas and Reagan biography to prepare.