News

By Andrew M. Seder aseder@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer
Andrew M. Seder on Facebook   |   @TLAndrewSeder on Twitter

Wanting participants to both use their brain and learn about it at the same time, Harriet Clyde Kipps set out to create a board game based on tidbits of trivia regarding health and the human body.

click image to enlarge

A prototype of the board game Quiz-ical Fitness created by a Glen Lyon woman with help from three local professors.

click image to enlarge

Harriet Clyde Kipps, of Glen Lyon, meets with health department representatives from Wilkes, King’s, and Luzerne County Community College to talk about the board game Quiz-ical Fitness that she designed. From left, Kipps, Mary Ann Merrigan Wilkes chairwoman of the Wilkes University nursing department; Dottie Craig, professor of nursing at LCCC, and Dr. Frances Ann Feudale, manager of the physician assistant program at King’s.

Clark Van Orden photos/The Times Leader

Select images available for purchase in the
Times Leader Photo Store

She couldn’t do it all on her own, but she knew just who to contact for assistance. She reached out to three health and nursing professors, including one who’s appeared on Jeopardy.

Kipps said if all goes as planned, the board game dubbed “Quiz-ical Fitness” could hit store shelves this fall. She’s hoping to order 1,000 for the first run. But before that happens a few housekeeping issues had to be done. So she met Friday with Mary Ann Merrigan, chairwoman of the nursing department at Wilkes; Frances Feudale, program director of the physician assistant program at King’s College, and Dorothy Craig, a faculty member of the Luzerne County Community College nursing department.

The four women met in a Pearsall Hall conference room at Wilkes University to discuss last second tweaks and prepare the game for manufacturing. Should there be an easy and difficult level of the questions? Should there be true or false or multiple choice questions or a mixture? Should there be “roll again” space on the game board?

Craig, who appeared on the television game show Jeopardy in the late ’80s said she loves trivia and board games and her involvement in the creation of the questions is fun.

Kipps, of Glen Lyon, said though the game is meant to be competitive and have a winner, her goal was to educate.

“It’s not as much about getting the questions right as it is about learning,” Kipps said.

She came up with the idea for the game last year; and, thanks to President Barack Obama’s attention on the health care system, she believes the game will tie in perfectly with the national shift toward healthier lifestyles.

This isn’t her first foray into the board game world. In 1994, she invented a game called “Volunteers.” She sold more than 10,000. And she hopes this game is just as, if not more, successful.

“I think it will be big. I really do,” Kipps said.

She used information she found in books, newspaper health sections, periodicals and on the Internet, coupled with fact checking from the professors and some questions they provided, and has about 2,000 questions. There are six categories in the game – pulmonary, cardiovascular, cerebral, digestive, miscellaneous and muscular skeletal. “These questions are simple things we should know. They’re for everyday people, not doctors,” Kipps said.

Some of the questions that were on the master list were easy and some stumped even the professionals.

“I learned a lot,” said Feudale.

And that’s what Kipps wants to see. More people taking the time to learn about their body and their health and to think about the things they eat and their lifestyles.

Merrigan said that putting educational information into game form will go a long way, especially for kids.

“When you make learning fun you remember it more,” Merrigan said.