Trivia Quizmasters in it for Fun

By Tom and Jerry Caraccioli

Admittedly, Dorothy and Dave Bonney weren’t always interested in trivia. But they started attending trivia nights at the old Cellar Door and really enjoyed themselves while not always having much success answering the questions.

Along the way, various hosts, including their daughter, had to give up their hosting duties. So, the Bonneys took over.

The quizzing duo host trivia night at Mendzetti’s Sports Bar once a week on Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. and at Junco Brewing Company in Southwest Oswego during the summer.

“We do this for fun,” quizmaster Dorothy said. “We get a free beer once in a while,” added quizmaster partner Dave. “We have no interest in doing this as a business. That’s the appeal. If we did it as a business, it would become work.”

It also becomes a night or two out and they’ve met a lot of fun people who became new friends along the way.

The pair is retired from Novelis in Oswego but continue to work when needed. Dave and Dorothy both have had mentally-challenging jobs and these days trivia is how they stay sharp in order to create their contests.

Each week the twosome spend between two to three hours researching and writing 50 questions for the 60- to 90-minute trivia event.

“We create 50 questions per week and do trivia probably about 50 weeks a year,” Dorothy said. “That’s 2,500 questions.” Added Dave. “We have many, many questions, probably close to 20,000 in total.”

Together, they have created a file for every week they hold a trivia contest dating back to 2018.

The Bonneys don’t watch TV, watch a lot of movies or scour dozens of newspapers. They are avid listeners of NPR and use Google as their main resource for researching questions and answers.

“We don’t use the newspaper much,” Dorothy explained. “Most of our research is googling. There are hundreds of sites for trivia questions. We google, ‘Trivia questions and answers for…’, and then provide the topic. There are usually multiple sites for a topic. There are many levels of difficulty, as well.”

Occasionally, the Bonneys will recycle a category, but not often. The appeal is exercising their minds and creating fun. They don’t use AI. They do their homework to find interesting questions they hope will create a fun and inviting atmosphere at the pubs, taverns and brew houses in which they hold their events.

“We’ve been fortunate enough that people follow us from bar to bar,” Dorothy said. “People like our trivia. We try to make it fun. And we’ve been known to give points for an answer that makes us laugh. It’s all for fun.”