Matt's Buzzers

Matt was a dedicated and accomplished Quiz Bowler throughout his college career. As an undergraduate at Iowa State, he participated in tournaments throughout the country. He had just completed his first semester of graduate study at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he had continued to be active in Quiz Bowl, when he came down suddenly with acute pancreatitis. He died on January 2nd, 2005.

With the memorials from Matt's funeral, we created a fund to distribute money to high school Quiz Bowl teams. In 2005 we intended to award grants only to small public schools in Iowa, Illinois, and North Dakota who were just beginning their adventures into Quiz Bowl, with funds to be used toward the purchase of a buzzer system. Due to the quality of the teams that applied, we decided to forego our original plan and give the $200 grants to a wider variety of schools. We awarded 9 grants in 2005 and 11 each in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

We've received some very exciting offers from companies specializing in buzzer systems. All of them are offering a 15% discount on the purchase of a buzzer system by teams that have been awarded a buzzer grant through our memorial. Thank you very much Zeecraft Tech, Specialty Design Corp and BuzzerSystems.com!

Any applications received after December 3, 2008 will be eligible for our 2009 buzzer grants. We will make our selections on the first Saturday in December 2009.

Past Recipients. We would like to thank all teams who applied for buzzer grants in the past.

Selection Method

Matt's Favorite Poem: El Dorado by Edgar Allen Poe

Questions posted in 2006 and 2007.

Our Donors

We also invite you to view our blog and add any memories of Matt that you might like to share.