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Published in The Seattle Times online on Jan. 29, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Feb. 1, 2026

Pioneering ‘Quizdown’ showcased local students’ wisdom, futures

By Clay Eals

Quick quiz: When the Ice Age ended, was the terrain rocky and rough or flat and fertile? What type of engine burns oil, not gasoline? If you turn a quart of water into steam, would the steam be more or less than a quart?

For answers, many of us today would dive into Google. Not so, however, for children who starred in 366 episodes of Seattle’s first locally produced program, “Quizdown,” which featured 5,000 fourth- through sixth-graders from public and private schools across King County.

Broadcast on Saturdays, “Quizdown” began on KOMO radio on Jan. 8, 1949, converted to TV on KING on Nov. 1, 1952, and on Dec. 12, 1953, returned to KOMO, where it remained on TV for the rest of its 16-1/2-year run.

From schools, KOMO and the co-sponsoring Seattle Post-Intelligencer solicited students’ questions, which numbered in the tens of thousands and probed topics in science, history, math and civics.

Longtime “quizmaster” Millard Ireland then interviewed and popped questions to pre-teens during the half-hour shows. Installments featured six students from each of two schools (plus alternates), competing for their schools to win encyclopedias, record players and other prizes.

“That it was on TV made it an example for countless kids that education is important, it can be fun, and it can lead to rewards,” reflects former longtime KING-TV anchor Jean Enersen, who helped represent Magnolia’s Our Lady of Fatima Parish School at age 11 in 1956.

The show’s name stemmed from “spelldown,” an event in which all contestants start standing, then sit as they’re eliminated. In “Quizdown,” though, students sat at school desks, facing cameras. Signs hung from their necks indicating their names and grade levels.

The show’s peppy personality derived from Ireland, an early newscaster who later became a U.S. Civil Defense official. His encouraging, rapid-fire exchanges with kids hinted at their later lives. On Feb. 1, 1958, for example, he ferreted out the interests of John Hay Elementary sixth-grader Norm Ahlquist.

“I like to work with radio and television,” Ahlquist said. “When they don’t work, I like to find out what’s wrong with them. … One time there was just a raster [grid pattern] but no picture. There was only one video tube in there, so we checked it, and it turned out to be completely dead.”

“You know,” Ireland deadpanned, “you might be teaching our technicians something about how to fix their own sets.”

Today, Ahlquist, 79, of Capitol Hill, boasts a long career in computers and civil engineering.

For another student from the same show, former Colman Elementary sixth-grader Cris Krisologo, 80, of Columbia City, “Quizdown” was consequential:

“It was like, ‘I can do that. I could probably answer those questions.’ Doing a show with younger kids really makes a difference. You start to get their juices going and thinking, ‘What do I want to really be?’ ”

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Norm Ahlquist, Cris Krisologo, Darwin Mitchell, Cal Ernst, Jean Enersen and especially Lindsy Ireland and Joe Wren for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below, you will find answers to the quiz questions posed in the first paragraph above, a video of the Feb. 1, 1958, episode of “Quizdown”; a video interview with a participant in that show, Cris Krisologo; 2 additional photos and 42 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

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Answers to quiz questions in the first paragraph above:

1. Rocky and rough.
2. Diesel.
3. More (One quart equals 1,600 quarts of steam.)