By Angela Twining
Witty and ready for the absurd, the 100 Hour Board staff provides answers to questions ranging from why the Eyring Science Center doors are so hard to open and the name of the indentation between your nose and your lip.
These questions are exactly what the 100 Hour Board was designed to answer, said Rachel Welton, BYUSA vice president over public relations.
Welton, 20, a senior from Stockton, California, majoring in English, said not a lot of people know the 100 Hour Board is there, but everyone would enjoy reading it.
The 100 Hour Board, on the bottom floor of the Wilkinson Student Center across from the advertisement board, is a forum where students can submit any question and get an answer within 100 hours.
“It”s a fun way for students to have a little involvement with BYU — ask any question, whether related to BYU or not, and get an answer in 100 hours,” Welton said.
The writers have certainly seen some absurd things during their involvement with the 100 Hour Board, said one of the writers who goes by the name of Othello.
He said a fun thing about the board is its element of mystery. Everyone who writes for the board does it under a pen name.
CAPCOM, another writer, said, “I love the fact we can remain anonymous. It”s not like it”s a secret or bad, it just makes it more fun.”
Othello is also the program director for the 100 Hour Board. He said he has a database of the 14 writers for the 100 Hour Board and he matches questions to writers and their interests.
“We don”t guarantee a correct answer, we just guarantee an answer,” he said, although he said the answers are usually correct. “And generally, more often than not, they are answered in 100 hours.”
The 100 Hour Board is an extension of BYUSA, although it acts independently of it, Othello said.
“The board originally started as kind of a BYUSA suggestion box and the idea was to keep it of a more serious nature,” he said.
But soon the 100 Hour Board could not ignore the questions unrelated to BYUSA, and the questions became goofier and the answers sillier, Othello said.
Since the board did not follow as BYUSA originally intended, a movement was made to shut it down last semester. Othello said enough students let their voices be heard in BYUSA and the 100 Hour Board was moved from underneath the wing of the Student Advisory Council to public relations.
CAPCOM said her favorite part of writing for the 100 Hour Board is finding the answers.
“I have the most fun answering people”s questions when they are serious and legitimate questions that are really hard to get answered around BYU,” she said.
Just lately, she said there has been a wave of questions from non-members about Mormonism, and although the board does not claim to know all the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it finds answers that are out there.
She said writing for the board is a fun, random thing to do.
Ryan Lindgren, 22, a senior from Sandy, Utah, majoring in social work, said he likes to read the 100 Hour Board.
“It”s quirky in that it answers the questions you want, and it”s sometimes stuff you really wonder about,” he said. “When BYU lets its quirky side show, it”s good.”
Lindgren said if he had to find the answers to questions on the board, it would take him 100 years.
And the name of the indentation between your nose and your lip? A philtrum.
