By Will Fladd
The Quiz Bowl is New Mexico State University’s academic trivia club, with the goal of participating in collegiate competitions as well as fostering a love for trivia at NMSU and beyond.
The club meets in Conroy Honors College room 206 Mondays and Wednesdays. They will also be hosting a competition for regional high schools on Wednesday, Nov. 15, and are looking for volunteers. Responsibilities include reading questions, scoring, and general upkeep for the event. (What club president Z Burns lovingly terms “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”) Breakfast and lunch are provided, and participation counts for Aggie Cup points, ASNMSU reimbursement, as well as various other outreach requirements.
Quiz Bowl is a format of trivia competition in which participants in teams of four are grilled on all manner of subjects with the goal of buzzing in first with the correct response. Burns, who has been with the club since its inception in 2019, sat down for an interview about its history, future, and the unending allure of seemingly useless knowledge.
When it was formed, the club was mostly about establishing a presence for the Quiz Bowl in southern New Mexico, which has been historically lacking in the region compared to neighboring El Paso. Early on there was a focus on building strength at the collegiate level, but with time and new leadership the club broadened its horizons.
“It became a very big priority for us in terms of outreach to provide those same opportunities to the underserved high school population,” Burns said.
They began hosting high school tournaments in spring 2022, and have since continued to host one every semester. The first of these only attracted three high schools, but the attendance for the upcoming competition has ballooned to 14. The success of these outreach efforts is not without its drawbacks, however.
Speaking on the feasibility of such a large event, Burns said, “We’re also very concerned because we remain a small student organization and the logistics of putting on such a large event with such a small amount of manpower is a very daunting thing.”
After the club gained momentum in its early days, even managing to attend a competition at UT-Austin, the COVID-19 pandemic forced operations online. At this point the new membership took hold and increased focus on outreach. The president then was a grad student, who passed the role to Burns. There was a struggle with numbers in 2023-24, and this combined with Burns’ absence meant the club went inactive in spring 2025.
Ever since their return, Burns has been focused on rebuilding the club back to its height. With only two returning members, it has proven an uphill battle, but they remain optimistic about its current membership and future.
As for who should consider Quiz Bowl, Burns said it is first and foremost about a fiercely competitive spirit. The goal is self-improvement and, ultimately, fun.
“The biggest obstacle that we get when we do recruitment events is, 90% of the time when we’re trying to find out if people enjoy trivia, for some reason their response is that they’re not good at it,” Burns said. “If you’re unable to enjoy an activity even if you fail, Quiz Bowl probably isn’t going to be a good space for you. We’re here to challenge ourselves and to discover what we don’t know so that we can learn about it.”
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