Shriner Hall Wins Policies for Dollars

By Sofia Montoya-Deck

Shriner Hall won Hood’s annual Policies for Dollars competition on Nov. 14, taking home the acclaimed Pink Spoon.

At 7 p.m., students from each of the residence halls filed into Whitaker Campus Commons for the final Policies for Dollars event, a Jeopardy-style trivia battle.

Shriner’s head resident assistant, KayKay Reddin, MC’ed the event. She kicked off the night by asking attendees to give the hard-working RAs a round of applause and then individually applauded each of the halls in attendance.

Each building had five representatives who buzzed in to answer questions. Staying true to the rules of regular Jeopardy, answers had to be phrased in the form of a question.

The trivia board was comprised of six categories: Policies, Hood History, Residence Life Staff, Campus Resources, Hood Geography and Hood Traditions. Each category consisted of five questions ranging from 100 to 500 points.

Residence halls took the competition very seriously, to the point where Redding had to issue a warning of, “no shoving people.”

The event lasted roughly two hours in all. Questions ranged from “You might hear someone shout ‘don’t split the poles!’ at this iconic Hood College location” (The Pergola) to “Hood’s first ever costumed mascot, Blaze, made its debut in a surprise flash mob performance at the end of the traditional convocation ceremony during this year” (2010).

Before entering the Final Jeopardy round, Shriner and Smith were tied with 2,800 points, Blazer had 2,000, Coblentz had 900 and Meyran had 800.

Each building wagered its points for the final category, “Famous Pets on Hood College’s Campus.” The final question was: “You might see Pres Chap, Lauri Ward, or LaShawn Taylor walking these famous pups around campus.”

Shriner doubled their points after successfully naming “Koda, Tino and Tinker.” Smith was unable to maintain the tie after failing to name Tino, so Shriner walked away with an additional 500 points for winning the Jeopardy battle.

In addition to the trivia contest, buildings were awarded points for banners their residents created and for attendance at the event. The final scores were Meyran in fifth place with 2,500 points; Smith in fourth with 3,200; Coblentz in third with 3,700; Blazer in second with 4,000; and Shriner in first with 4,900.

“I feel great, fantastic, second year in a row,” Reddin said of Shriner’s victory. Reddin won the competition last year as well as the head RA of Coblentz.

“I had one rule: do not lose to Smith,” Reddin said. “I refuse to lose to a bunch of freshmen.”

At the end of the evening, President Chapdelaine thanked everyone for attending. “This was really fun,” she said. “And we’re all still friends, right?” Chapdelaine also shared her disappointment that Memorial could not participate because the renovation is not yet completed, but she announced that she will be giving them a gift when they move in.