Signing club hosts Alternative event

From: Purdue Exponent - Apr 20, 2003

By Mat Vross
Staff Writer

Who wants to win prizes?

The American Sign Language Club will host "Who Wants to Win Prizes," a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" style trivia game as part of Grand Alternative program at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Room 2280 of Beering Hall.

The game is a result of games played during club meetings, said Whitney Powers, sophomore in the School of Education and the club president. "We play a lot of trivia games dealing with the deaf culture in our meetings and have a lot of fun. That?s how we got this idea," she said.

Normally, the club plays trivia games to help its members become more aware of the deaf culture, but this is not the case for "Who Wants to Win Prizes." Each member of the club was asked to submit two or three random trivia questions for the game show, which will be hosted by a member of the club, said Powers. "I?m not sure if it?s going to be me yet," Powers laughingly said.

According to Powers, the game will be formatted similar to "Millionaire," with 10 questions in a round, different levels of prizes and a grand prize. "We?re giving away a George Foreman Grill ? I?m so excited about that," she said. Other prizes include sign language and non-sign language related things such as mugs and T-shirts, said Powers.

Everyone who enters the room will guess the number of candies in a jar, or something similar, and contestants will be chosen according to the most accurate guesses, said Powers. The top 10 or so people will get to play.

The event has been mostly advertised to club members, said Powers, but anyone is welcome to participate. "We wanted a substance-free event as a Grand Alternative (event) and we thought this would be really fun," said Powers.

The club was activated several years ago, said Powers, but then fell dormant. This is the club?s first year back on track and the club is trying to get back into the swing of things by hosting several guest speakers and a silent dinner throughout the course of the year, she said. "The mission of the (club) is to promote deaf awareness on campus and to give interested students who couldn?t get into a sign language class a chance to experience the language."

Powers said the club is looking to increase instructional meetings for next year.

"(Belonging to the club) makes us realize that there is a whole new community out there that people don?t know about," said Powers.

© The Exponent 2003