First place Puzzle Palooza 2023 winners (left to right) Eileen Pierson, Suellen Self, and Charlene Norris with their trophy and the puzzle
Jane Scholz
Three Robson women with a clearly defined strategy took first place in the second Puzzle Palooza, improving on their second-place finish in the first Puzzle Palooza in 2019.
Suellen Self, Charlene Norris, and Eileen Pierson finished the puzzle in one hour and 27 minutes in the competition sponsored by Friends of the Library (FOL) in November. Second place went to Lisa, Chuck, and Julie Gollihar. Steve Tafoya and Julie Gronneberg finished third. All finished in less than two hours.
Charlene Norris, the de facto leader of the winning trio, said their strategy had been to effectively sort the 500 puzzle pieces by color. “We sorted the colors, then resorted them to make sure we had the right matches,” she said.
The three are veteran trivia players, but at least two of them don’t spend a lot of time with jigsaw puzzles. This year, they practiced with another 500-piece puzzle in the week before the competition, which was held on Nov. 10 and 11 in the Robson Library.
The biggest difference between this year’s competition and the one in 2019 was that all 10 competing teams solved the same puzzle: a custom jigsaw made from an aerial photo of a section of the Robson golf course with housing in the background. The photo was taken by resident Steve Simpson.
The competition puzzles are now available for checkout in the library, so all residents can compare their skills with the top finishers. The library has dozens of puzzles available to all Robson residents.
FOL is a 501(c)(3) organization that supports our community library in the CATC building. To learn more and to join, go to www.robsonlibrary.org/fol, download the form, and follow the directions.