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.

We began our buzzer grant program in 2005, hoping to continue Matt's love for Quiz Bowl and help make it possible for Middle and High School students to participate with all of the requisite equipment. We awarded twelve $200 grants this year (2009), two in cooperation with the organizers of the Rotary Northern Indiana Championship Tournament.

We've gratefully partnered with a few 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!

Thanks to the generosity of Donald Taylor, a grad student at UIUC and an active member of their Academic Buzzer team, we will be holding a 'second chance' drawing this weekend. All teams who had submitted applications for the December 2009 drawing and were not already selected to receive a buzzer grant will be eligible. Two teams will be selected to receive the grants of $200 each. Donald held a HS singles tournament on February 27th at Fenton HS in Bensenville, IL and donated all of the proceeds from the tournament to Matt's Buzzers. Thank you Donald!

Please see our Facebook page for news and updates as the school year progresses.

We are now accepting applications for our 2010 selection, which will be held on the first Saturday in December.

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