By MEGHAN FELCH, Staff Reporter.
Delta students put their knowledge to the test for a chance at cash prizes on Tuesday, Feb. 24. Hosted just outside the student engagement office in the downstairs commons, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the Black History Month edition, gathered 20 student players. Five teams of four dove through ever-more challenging rounds of multiple-choice questions, with the lowest scoring team eliminated each round.
Professor John Neal, the host of the show, read off this question early on, “Who nonviolently led the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s in America?” He quickly followed it up with, “If you don’t get this one, you might as well be disqualified right now.” The rest of the questions tackled everything from sports, entertainment, career breakthroughs, activists, politicians, inventors and even pioneers of the Tri-City area.
Students Charisma Bassett and Tyeisha Sherman watched from the sidelines, and were surprised by a couple of the game’s answers. “I didn’t know about Claudette Colvin,” said Sherman. Basset was on the same page, “Yeah, I’d only heard about Rosa Parks [being arrested for bus segregation].”
“Honestly, my pride’s a little hurt,” said Kyle Zobel of the “Kingsmen” team, the second group to be taken out of the running. “I consider myself to be kind of a history buff.”
“We didn’t even care so much about the the money, we just wanted to win,” said fellow team member James Allen.
The final two teams gave it their all, but the “4-D squad” ended up gaining the most points. They won $25 each, while second place was awarded a $15 bookstore voucher and third place received $10 for Red Brix.
Deborah Sutton works in student finance and was a member of the Black History Month committee this year. She volunteered as one of the scorekeepers for the game and was glad to see something new and exciting added to this year’s events.
However, Professor Neal had one more trick up his sleeve, a double-or-nothing round. If this winning team (Mikkel Lewis, Tavish Miree, Demario Thomas and Damien Moore) got only three of the 10 questions right for this final round, they could double their cash prize. Of course, if they couldn’t get to three right answers, they would lose their winnings. The team took the chance, and its members set about pacing around the tables between each question.
A few students still remained and cheered them on and by the fourth question they won the round. This corner of the commons was filled with whoops and even a group hug or two.
Dorian Pehlps, director of the Possible Dreams program was glad to see the interactive nature of the game show provide a good outlet for students. “We needed to get the students involved. More than just bringing someone in to talk at students, we work with them in this case.”
“The most important thing is that the students learn something and stay engaged,” said Neal as the program came to a close.
According to Neal, after this year’s success the game show model for Black History Month will most likely be back next year.
