The Mother’s Club at St. Louis U. High hosts a Mother-Son Trivia Night every year, giving an opportunity for students to take a break from their hectic school lives and spend some time with their families. This event is typically held in the Si Commons and draws a relatively large crowd, but, due to the pandemic, an in-person trivia night similar to those in years past would simply be unfeasible.  

Rather than cancelling trivia night, the Mother’s Club made the decision to move it to an online setting. The Commons were replaced by a virtual Zoom meeting room, allowing for one of SLUH’s favorite traditions to carry on in the face of Covid-19.

Trivia night took place on March 6, and, despite the logistical challenges of hosting virtually, attendance numbers are estimated to have stayed more or less consistent with those of previous years.  

Going into the trivia night, some worried that traditions such as the decorating of tables would be unable to occur. Some, like senior Drew Walters and his family, were still able to make the best of the situation and with this fun tradition at home, choosing to decorate both themselves and their Zoom background.

“My mom kind of set it up that night,” said Walters, “I was surprised but I liked the idea. My dad had a Monopoly Man costume, I was dressed like an Operation board, and my mom was dressed like a Twister board. We were kind of worried that people wouldn’t be able to see our decorations because of the video quality, but thankfully that wasn’t much of an issue.”

Another aspect of the virtual trivia night that was consistent with previous years was the host. Math teacher Stephen Deves, who is well known for facilitating the trivia portion of Freshman Fun Day, curates trivia from various categories, and presents it on a slideshow. This year, Deves was set up in a classroom on campus, and screen-shared his presentation to the participants.

Interestingly, Walters actually preferred the virtual setting because of the lack of background noise, which allowed for trivia questions to be heard with clarity.  

Said Walters, “I liked it more than the in-person trivia night because I felt like it was more organized. We knew when each round was starting and stopping, and you could actually hear what he was saying without people talking over him.  I just thought it was really well organized.”

Overall, however, the sentiment is that, should circumstances permit it, Mother-Son trivia night will return in-person during the 2021-2022 school year.