The write and wipe board was in her job description.

First thing every morning, her boss told her. Question of the day.

Before coffee?

Before coffee.

Maggie Stroup has a new boss now. But the write and wipe is still there in the window of Security National Properties - the management company for the Gold's Building downtown.

It teases passersby on their way to the bus stop, the elevator, the unemployment office. It gets them thinking as they walk down the atrium, past Scooter's and the purse shop, heading west.

In 1913, the 16th amendment made what kind of tax permanent?

(Hint: It was the April 15 question.)

People pause midstride. A guy in a red ball cap looks. Stops. Looks. A man in a hoodie, Mountain Dew on the way to his lips, takes two steps backward like Michael Jackson moonwalking.

Maggie and the guy at the desk beside her, Roger Mittan, come up with the questions every morning. Roger came to work with a good one Monday.

In 1937, the first check was written for what government program?

(Hint: Not farm subsidies. Not Medicare.)

Mary Carstens started the board. When she became property manager for Security National in 2004, she thought trivia would be a good way to pull people in.

"We wanted to have tenants and employees feel comfortable coming into our office and have some fun at the same time."

What animal was brought to the U.S. from India in 1796?

(Hint: It wasn't the camel.)

They started with Lincoln trivia. Then they moved to Nebraska history and, in the fall, football.

"It became part of people's day."

They eventually exhausted localisms and moved on to the big broad world out there. And then Mary left to go work for the city helping manage its downtown parking garages.

What would become of the write and wipe board now?

(Hint: Talk to Roger.)

"We tried to quit but we got too much flack," he says. "People in the building are addicted to it."

They have regulars. Employees of Health and Human Services upstairs. StarTran riders. There's one guy who gets on his cell phone and reads the question to his wife.

Sometimes they pass out candy to the day's correct guessers, but usually the prize is getting it right.

Who was announced as the #1 Fortune 500 Company?

(Hint: Front page headline in Lincoln Journal Star, April 20.)

Ideas for questions occasionally come from the newspaper, says Roger. More often from the Internet. Or Fox and Friends, the radio show he listens to early in the morning.

They try to strike a balance: Not too easy. Not too hard. "We try to play to our crowd," he says.

What king was crowned today who had a notorious reputation with women?

(Hint: King is the key word; it's not a former president.)

From her office in the mezzanine, Kelley Ernstmeyer can look down and see the board. She can read the questions if they're written in blue marker, not so much when they mix it up and use red.

"It's fun. It's entertaining," says the woman who sometimes takes a break from crunching state childcare subsidy numbers to answer a trivia question. "It gives people something to think about."

What radio host debuted today in 1980?

(Hint: Not Rush Limbaugh.)

Nearly every day Maggie learns something she didn't know. And they haven't run out of ideas yet.

Her old boss is happy they still have the game going in the Gold's Building.

She worked in the hotel industry before she was a property manager, Mary says. That's where she first came up with the idea, putting up a white board in the breakfast room of the Hampton Inn by the airport.

Does she have a write and wipe board at her new job in parking services?

(No hints.)

The answer is no.

"We have a newsletter for that kind of thing."

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.

Answers:

1. Income tax

2. Social Security

3. Elephant

4. Exxon

5. Henry VIII

6. Howard Stern