Drop by any Thursday night for the big trivia contest at Terre Haute’s Sonka Irish Pub and you’d better bring your A-game.

The questions cover sports, science, movies, history and much more. And one team of Rose-Hulman professors in particular can be found among the many competitors gulping beer, sharing laughs and (sometimes) answering the trivia questions correctly.

But this is no ordinary trivia team. The Terrehautios, as they affectionately call themselves, won this year’s National Trivia League state championship at the Hard Rock Cafe in Indianapolis on July 29. Now, you can find them honing their skills at Sonka on Thursday nights as they keep their mental powers at peak performance.

“We’re smart,” quips one team member, laughing when asked how they answered a tough sports question to capture the state championship.

The question was: Name two of the three men who have won both an NCAA football championship and a Super Bowl as a head coach. Stephanie Hill, a visiting assistant professor of biology and biomedical engineering, and teammate Amanda Lubold, a sociology professor at nearby Indiana State University, came up with the correct answer: Pete Carroll, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer.

Winning the state championship gave the team a title to defend next year and a check for $2,500.

Faculty members come and go from the team as their schedules permit, explains mechanical engineering professor and The Terrehautios ringleader Mike Moorhead. Other faculty who are trivia night contestants include Timothy All, Daniel Anastasio, Eva Andrijcic, Rebecca Bercich, Daniel Chang, Simon Jones, Kyle Kershaw, Matt Lovell, John McSweeney, Stephanie Poland, Kosta Popovic and Fumie Sunahori. The group also occasionally competes in trivia contests at Terre Haute’s Charlie’s Pub & Grub and the Terre Haute Brewing Company.