So here's your once-in-a-lifetime chance to get up-close and personal with the Coeur d'Alene and Post Falls Press' front-page trivia maestro:

* Which accomplishment makes Wilson Casey - aka TrivGuy - proudest?

a) His Guinness World Record for the longest radio trivia marathon

b) His blue ribbon in the fried vegetable division of the National Okra Cookoff

c) His school district Teacher of the Year award for coaching elementary school physical education

d) a and c

* If you chose "d," you're a winner.

For Casey, it's indeed a toss-up between the teaching award he won three years after graduating college and his being in the Guinness book.

(Just for the record, he's never once cooked okra - either deep-fried or otherwise.)

"I'm so proud of my teaching award," he said. "I taught for three years and I think I made a difference for those kids."

This 58-year-old man whose words are read daily in more than 600 newspapers has never taken a journalism course. His interest in trivia, he said, started during his college years with sports trivia, that all-time barroom favorite.

So, what exactly is trivia?

For Casey, trivia is about learning new things - not about stumping people.

"Trying to stump people turns them off in a big hurry," he said. "Trivia is more like, 'I think I know this' or 'I used to know this' or 'I know I can figure this out.'"

Dr. Charlie Gates is a Coeur d'Alene physician who starts off his mornings with a healthy dose of Wilson Casey.

"I feel successful if I get half of them right," Gates said. "It's quick and easy to read and the answers are right there on the same page. Some of the information is so arcane that few people know it. I, personally, never knew how little I knew."

Casey's first trivia column ran in the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal while he was still a student at the University of South Carolina. It was basically formatted the same as it is today with six questions. Soon it was syndicated and suddenly Casey was in hundreds of papers.

"Nothing to it, right?" he said. "But I was young and dumb and got behind in the work and even though they gave me plenty of chances, after a couple years, I lost the gig."

Following the demise of his column, the South Carolina native dove into entrepreneurial waters with his usual hellzapoppin' enthusiasm. Among other of his enterprises, he designed women's shoes, owned a temporary labor company, and had a mail order marketing firm which produced how-to booklets on such topics as hangover remedies and ways to beat speeding tickets.

But he never lost the trivia itch.

"During this time," Casey said, "I got a job in Spartanburg doing a live radio program during the lunch hour. The show just blew out the ratings.

"I never had a radio voice, but I was blessed with a quick wit and knew how to keep the show moving. Our prizes were anything from cheesecakes to a dozen roses."

In January 1999, Casey took on the Guinness Book of World Records.

"I answered 3,333 questions correctly on air at my local radio station and that record hasn't been broken yet," he said. "The questions were either multiple choice or in an either/or format."

"It was a physical record more than a mental one," he said. "I trained for six months trying to get in better shape. Guinness insisted I have two fully-licensed medical personnel with me the whole time and they had the authority to call it all off."

Casey said he didn't drink coffee during the event - just chewed on celery and drank a lot of Mountain Dew. About three hours into the 30-hour marathon, he went to sleep for about five seconds and fell off his chair.

"After we were done, they told me later that I wouldn't shut up," Casey said. "I guess I was still answering trivia questions."

Would he do it again?

"No way," he said, his tone leaving no room for future negotiation on the subject.

The following year he went full-time with a nationally syndicated Sunday column of Bible trivia. These days, for his weekday columns, Casey does his own syndication.

"What helps me sell my column is that it's truly size-adaptable," he said. "I supply six questions daily, but if a paper wants to run only four, that's fine. Basically my audience consists of baby boomers."

OK, now here's a question you've all been waiting for: Where does TrivGuy get his trivia?

"I'm kind of an old-school guy who likes to hang out at the library - I mostly use textbooks and encyclopedias," he explained. "I only go to the Internet as a checking thing.

"I literally have millions of readers and I need to be correct 99.9 percent of the time. What amazes me is that somebody can put 'two plus two equals five' on the Internet and 50 websites will copy it."

Casey tries to get his columns finished two weeks to 30 days in advance of publication. He obviously learned from his earlier mistakes as a student columnist.

"The most difficult part of writing the column is coming up with the wrong answers," Casey said. "It's the most creative part, though, because I want the answers to be close to the question. I try to research it and to make a lot of credible, possibly wrong answers. Over the years, I've had readers argue with me about my wrong answer selections."

He said he chooses his six daily topics at random and that he's looking for items with a "hodge-podge" of appeal. And he's always on the prowl for new knowledge.

"Back when I was still a teacher, my principal had been collecting the fall premier issues of TV Guide for 30 years and we'd pull these magazines out and just try to stump each other. I'm still like that - a sponge - and I really enjoy learning new things."

Casey works seven days a week and starts his days at 4 a.m.

"I'm tied to a job with a lot of freedom," he said. "No way could I sit in an office and work a shift. I love what I do and I've been blessed to turn a little hobby into a full-time living.

"I'm not a celebrity, but I do have a good fan base of readers and I appreciate that. I was once on The Weakest Link, but they voted my butt off after 37 minutes, even though I was nailing the questions. I did get to share a dressing room with Dennis Weaver, though."

Casey will soon have three new 2014 box calendars in bookstores. The Bible Trivia Challenge, Goth Trivia and True Crime Trivia will all be on the shelves by Labor Day.

"Basically I'm a simple guy," Casey said. "I rarely watch TV and I don't play video games. You don't get anywhere in life or business without someone helping you or believing in you. I just try to keep my standards high with so many folks believing in me. Without them, I wouldn't have a chance."

Shortly, readers will be able to play trivia on Casey's website: www.triviaguy.com.