On Dec. 6, 2021, the Lexington Education Foundation hosted its annual trivia bee to fund grants for Lexington Public Schools. Many participants, from parents to LPS teachers, participated in the competitive event.

The Master of the Ceremonies was Jeff Leonard, who served as the Coordinator of Performing Arts at Lexington High School for over 35 years. The judges were Alessandro Alessandrini, Farzana Khatri, and David Lee, along with guest judge Wendy Manz. 

Although the purpose of the LEF Trivia Bee is to finance the educational activities that LPS is unable to fund alone, it also engages the Lexington community, providing participants an opportunity to work with their community members in a different environment. 

“I like the camaraderie of working with some of my colleagues in a different setting, but I just enjoy trivia, the competition of it,” Mark Waldeck, a science teacher at Jonas Clarke Middle School, said. 

In the trivia bee, there were fifteen teams that were further split up into three primary swarms, each with five teams competing against each other. The winning teams would proceed to the final swarm, along with two randomly chosen losing teams.

It’s buzz-ness time emerged as the winning team of the swarm. The winner from the second swarm was the Bridge Queen Bees, and after a long tie-breaker, To Bee Determined prevailed in the third swarm.

In the final swarm the winners of the first three swarms competed along with the randomly selected teams Ain’t Mis-Bee-Hivin’ and The Revolutionaries. After the final swarm,  To Bee Determined was crowned the winner of the 2021 LEF Trivia Bee.  

Waldeck advises teams hoping to participate in the future to broaden their knowledge by composing teams with varied specializations. 

“It’s a diversity of knowledge. You have to have people who know a little bit of everything but, you know, specialize here and there so that [if] one person doesn’t know it, they can lean on someone else,” Waldeck said.

Sarah Jensen, a junior at LHS and member of the questions committee, also recommends following general trends in the media.

“Always stay up to date on your sports, that’s a big thing, know the winners of general things, keep up with the top billboards for music. There will always be some kind of tech questions, some Silicon Valley Tech questions,” Jensen said.

Waldeck plans to continue participating in the trivia bee. 

“It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great way to support the educational foundation in Lexington and have a little bit of a competition to boot,” Waldeck said. 

Jensen agrees the trivia bee is a fun competitive way to bring the Lexington community together.

“I think education is a big central part of Lexington and a trivia bee is a way to express that and show that. I think it’s nice to be able to get together with your friends and colleagues and show what you know in front of your family and friends,” Jensen said.