Deloraine found success several times through the 1980’s. This included Western Manitoba Runners-up in 1981 with Grant Bell, Scott Day, Stephen Morrison and Danny Long and 1982 with Grant Bell, Scott Day, Stephen Morrison and Debbie Dillabough and in 1985 with Florence Carey, Kelly Luther, Jonathan Taylor and Jeff Weidenhamer. They were provincial runners up in 1983 with Grant Bell, Scott Day, Stephen Morrison and Debbie Dillabough and in 1984 they were National Champs with the same team as 1983.
The big success story came in 1984 in Regina at the National Championships. The Deloraine Collegiate Institute team of Stephen Morrison, Grant Bell, Florence Carey and Bruce Kropelin, along with coaches Jorge Calvo and Michael Taylor became Canadian champions. There was some drama in the semi-final game against Quebec. Manitoba answered three questions in quick succession in the final 10 seconds and realized an amazing come-from-behind victory. Team Quebec protested an earlier answer resulting in a 10-point deduction from Manitoba’s score. The score was tied at 370. Going to overtime one single question would decide which team advanced to the national championship. Bill Guest was the quizmaster and he asked “From the root of what plant is tapioca made?” Grant Bell was first to the buzzer with his answer of “Cassava”, which was the correct answer. Manitoba moved on to the final against New Brunswick winning 315-280 and becoming national champions. Deloraine was by far the smallest school to have ever won the title. It turned out to be the last time RFTT was broadcast prime time. CBC said it was very popular but too expensive to produce.
Just what was the secret to the 1984 team?
Bell said there were four factors.
Factor one was having an enthusiastic, supportive and dedicated coach. For 20 years Jorge Calvo devoted hundreds of hours of his personal time developing question packs, running practices and organizing exhibition games across southern Manitoba.
“Jorge’s endless energy and unique style kept his students engaged and motivated,” said Bell.
Factor two was dedicated team members. In order to cover the wide-range of potential subjects, the team pored over reference books, kept up-to-date with current events and pop-culture.
“We wrote and repeatedly reviewed sample questions and attended team practices. We were each assigned subjects to research and, over time, we were able to develop at least a superficial expertise in those areas.”
Factor three was about speed. According to Bell, once a solid foundation of knowledge was built, the key to winning at RFTT is speed-to-answer.
“Other teams might have known more than we did but, because we were more aggressive, we usually got the points. This skill was honed during hours of simulated games without school’s buzzer systems. We actually wore out the first one.”
Bell said the fourth and final factor was to fight to the end.
“Stephen and I had played together for three years and narrowly lost the provincial finals the previous year. At the start of the 1983-84 season, we’d already played 20 televised games so we knew what to expect and were confident that if we fell behind we’d be able to fight our way back,” added Bell.
That is exactly what happened.
Scott Day has high praise for his teammates and other successful RFTT teams coming out of Deloraine. He said that Grant Bell was a genius and was eventually voted the “Smartest Kid in Canada” in 1984 by the CBC Reach production team.
“He was my roommate through university and he used to get fan mail from across Canada that first year after high school. He is still one of my best friends.”
Day added that Grant was driven to do well because his brother Brian Bell did exceptionally well with his team of Al Manshreck, John Lovering and Guy Grierson in 1977 that lost in the provincial finals. Grant was sort of driven to avenge his brother’s loss.
Day said his personal highlight was almost winning the provincials and being part of the team in the stands at the national win in Regina.
He added a bit of history about the hosts, including Alex Trebek being a RFTT host but then was recruited by Merv Griffin to go to Hollywood to host Jeopardy. Ron Thompson was widely considered an excellent quizmaster and he said CKX was one of the first stations to host the show in Canada.
Speaking about Ron Thompson, Day said Thompson was so excited that Deloraine had won in 1984 that he put out fullpage ads in the local papers on behalf of CKX and came out to Deloraine to host a big celebration at the school gym. In 1985 the wildly popular board game Trivial Pursuit had just come out and CKX-TV decided to host a Trivia Pursuit Tournament at the studio as part of a fundraiser.
“Thompson called Grant and I to participate so we said yes not really knowing anything about this. The TV ads mentioned that the National Reach Champion would be playing. Grant and I bought the game a couple of days before the tournament and spent an evening just reading all the question packs.”
They managed to make it to the final in the two-team showdown and lost to a mother and daughter on a question about the districts of San Francisco. This seems very ironic as currently Day lives and works out of San Francisco six months of the year.
“Bill Guest out of CBC Winnipeg ended up being provincial and national host for several years in the late 70’s and 80’s and he was great too.”
Day said he was one of the very few players to have the distinction of being insulted on the air by Bill Guest.
“I guessed Rick James when the answer was actually Miss Piggy singing.”
Something else Day remembers is persuading the student council to buy a special practice buzzer when he was DCI president. It was an expensive item at $1,000. Day found out later that Jim Balsillie had invented the buzzer system for his school’s RFTT team in Southern Ontario and that these buzzers were sold to Reach teams all over the country. The money made from those sales helped Balsillie build a nest egg to go on and create Blackberry.
Following graduation from the University of Manitoba with a BSc in Computer Engineering, Bell went on to work in the IT department at Imperial Oil. He stayed with Imperial/Exxon Mobil for his whole career, 34 years, in a variety of roles with stints in Edmonton, Toronto and Calgary. He is now retired and stays busy with family, hobbies and volunteer events. He says he does not get back to Deloraine very often but stays close with several friends.
When city folks ask Bell how a small school like Deloraine could win a competition like RFTT he tells them, “It’s not the size of the town that matters, it’s the quality of its people. Because of this fact, Deloraine will always see success.”
There was a few year’s gap when there was no RFTT program at Deloraine School. Dale McKinnon reintroduced the program in the 2005-06 school year and the senior team got to the provincial finals. Team members included Sydney Hammond, Grace McKinnon, Jeff Edwards, Alexander McKinnon and Kyle Kemp. Currently, Paul Artz runs the Intermediate program (gr. 7-10) and Matt Palmer runs the Senior program (gr. 10-12). Deloraine School competes in the Western division, which includes three league tournaments. Deloraine School had intermediate and senior teams this year and both teams finished second in the West division.
“If you win the West, you go to provincials. For the intermediate that is as far as they go, for the senior if you win provincials, you advance to Nationals. We practice using old game or practice packs. Kids get one point for every question they get correct. We take the top five kids to every tournament. There is always lots of interest from the kids,” said Artz.
Artz said one of the greatest benefits of RFTT is that the program provides opportunity for kids to belong. It is like being part of a sports team. It is open to anyone, an inclusive activity and a place to hang out.
“You get a very diverse group of kids, some are involved in many activities and for others, this might be their thing. I remember being impressed with the program when I first moved to Deloraine. It was cool to be smart.”
Artz would like to see a couple of changes to the RFTT program, including more local schools taking part, thus less travel. He would also like to see an additional category for schools under a certain population.
“As of now we compete against every school in Manitoba. Usually the other teams are private schools from Winnipeg or Winnipeg schools with a couple thousand students.”
In conclusion Artz mentioned some impressive stats concerning Deloraine School and its involvement with RFTT. From 2010 until 2020 Deloraine School never missed a provincials and often represented the West in both Intermediate and Senior. The last time a Manitoba school won the Nationals was in 1984 when Deloraine won. Since 1966, Manitoba has only won the National Championships four times, and the other three were high schools form Winnipeg. Deloraine School won a silver medal in the 2011 Intermediate Provincials.
by JUDY WELLS, Recorder staff