Villager Kevin Lydy, who taught social studies at Yellow Springs High School from 2015 to 2022, and who is currently the education specialist at the National Afro-American Museum in Wilberforce, runs monthly trivia games at Yellow Springs Brewery. He celebrates a year doing so on Monday, Oct. 12. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Teacher turns to trivia
- Published: October 12, 2026
In the human body, which organ produces the hormone insulin? The pancreas! The original recipe for S’Mores was published in the 1927 guidebook “Tramping and Trailing” with what youth organization? The Girl Scouts!
Which villager has been leading rousing trivia nights at Yellow Springs Brewery for the last year, and will mark the occasion with a celebratory, prize-packed game this week? Why, that’s Mr. Lydy, host of Trivia with Mr. Lydy!
On Monday evening, Oct. 12, former and beloved Yellow Springs High School social studies teacher Kevin Lydy will host another night of trivia at the brewery — this one, a special occasion, as he’s celebrating a year of schooling and stumping local drinkers and thinkers.
“Two words people describe my trivia are ‘tough’ and ‘fun,’” Lydy told the News earlier this week. “Those two things usually don’t jive, but here they do. I don’t think anyone’s walking out of the brewery on trivia night feeling grumpy.”
Lydy took the mic last October after his predecessor and chemistry professor Ray Dudek headed down the road to run trivia nights at New Enon Brewing Company, and he generally kept his predecessor’s game format: four rounds with mini rounds in between. Teams are to be no larger than four people and, of course, phones are strictly verboten — that’s German for “forbidden.”
Lydy’s round themes are far-ranging. The first is reliably current events, and the second is an homage to his classroom roots — questions that touch on arithmetic, language arts, science, social studies and specials. There’s a round with visual clues; a mini-round that gets increasingly hard with each question, and one that gets easier; periodic music questions; and bonus and secret rounds.
Another interesting tidbit of Trivia with Lydy: It attracts local college professors like moths to a light. (Fittingly so. Did you know that 62% of Yellow Springs residents have bachelor’s degrees or higher — more than twice the Ohio average.) But those big brains shouldn’t deter any would-be challenger, Lydy said. He tries his best to “diversify” his questions to appeal to all knowledge bases and ages.
“I even get a lot of former students of mine who come and play,” Lydy said with a grin. “And they’re my biggest complainers. They get upset when I ask cultural questions that predate them being alive. They want more stuff from the 2000s!”
And it’s not all a battle of wits. Lydy occasionally breaks ties with a paper airplane-throwing contest — another holdover from his teacher days.
“This is absolutely a continuation of what I was doing in the classroom,” he said. “My background is in project-based learning. I’ve always believed that people should be invested in what they are learning, and not just accept something at face value — to investigate, research.”
And though trivia could be misconstrued as knowledge that is trivial — it actually comes from the Latin root trivium, meaning a place where three roads meet — Lydy maintains that his game has educational merit.
Not infrequently he receives messages from players who encounter in the world something related to what they learned from Lydy’s questions — likely by having gotten them wrong. In that spirit, Lydy said his trivia nights are a chance to learn alongside others, to be in communion with other curious minds.
“But really, it’s just fun,” he said.
Trivia with Mr. Lydy is free and open to all Yellow Springs Brewery patrons. The event occurs on at least one Monday per month. The next is Monday, Oct. 12, when Lydy will celebrate a year doing the event, and then on Monday, Oct. 26. Participants are asked to arrive around 6 p.m. to reserve a table.
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