CB East Student Wins $5,000 Scholarship in Trivia Contest

TruMark Financial's annual Financial Jeopardy competition Wednesday night at the Buck Hotel in Feasterville tested the knowledge of 10 students from high schools in Bucks and Montgomery counties in categories such as investments, car insurance and bankruptcy.

But it turns out a category dedicated to trivia about the credit union itself would be one of the deciding factors leading to victory for CB East's Tim Farley.

"My teacher, Mrs. Kownurko, told me to watch out for those questions," said Farley. "I read up on TruMark on the website, and when the questions came up, I jumped all over them."

Farley walked away from the competition with a $5,000 scholarship check after holding off Dan Michelson from Radnor High School and Robert Reid from Roman Catholic. The contest was close after the first round, but the TruMark category and a well-placed Daily Double helped Farley build an insurmountable lead, going ahead by as much as $7,000 at one point.

"Those guys were tough, they knew a lot," said Farley. "I buzzed in on the answers I definitely knew and just held off on anything I wasn't completely sure about. I just wanted to make sure I had at least more than double their scores at Final Jeopardy."

The strategy paid off for Farley, but Michelson and Reid did not leave empty-handed, with a $3,000 second prize and $2,000 for third place.

The Financial Jeopardy Game is an extension of the financial literacy programs TruMark Financial supports and promotes throughout the region. In an effort to provide students with sound financial principles that will serve them throughout a lifetime, TruMark Financial employees visit local high schools and conduct presentations on topics such as banking, establishing and maintaining good credit, budgeting, and investing. Applying sound financial knowledge to important decisions throughout life helps to reduce risk and build a solid foundation for the future.

The presentations provide third-party expertise to the students and complement the schools’ existing personal finance curricula. In addition, TruMark Financial operates student-run branches at William Tennent High School in Warminster, and Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in Plymouth Meeting.