Bingo myth turns out to be a bit of a crock

There’s something of an urban myth around the Purdue University Fort Wayne campus that a student somehow won four crockpots by playing in the monthly bingo night hosted by the Student Activities Board.

How is that possible? And why would someone be so fascinated with crockpots? It almost sounds too strange to be real.

Well, it is—in a way. As usual with such rumors, there’s a hint of truth involved, though liberally stretched.

When Zack Burk, a mechanical engineering and math major from Philadelphia, attended his first bingo event as a freshman in September 2021, he won the crockpot round. With an obsession similar to Herman Melville’s Ahab, he’s been chasing his second ever since.

“It’s an underappreciated prize, in my opinion,” Burk said with a grin. “I wasn’t that serious about it until last year, and then I was with a group of my friends, and they said they’d like to win a crockpot. And then someone joked about it being a cult of the crockpot, so we just started going with it.”

The two bingo buddies are Sebastian Vachon and Gabriel Blye, who are both seniors majoring in information technology. Though they are all studying fields in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science, they only connect at the monthly events. Burk doesn’t even know their mobile phone numbers, which suggests this could be one of the most secretive clubs on campus.

Along with perpetuating the myth, the semi-mysterious nature of the trio is part of the fun. By sharing these details, it’s like Burk is letting everyone else in on an inside joke. He does it with a smirk and a wink, maintaining a fantastic college tradition of purposely being a little off-center and reveling in it.

“It’s generally just a vibe I try to go for,” Burk explained. “I do what is fun. There’s no point in being a grown-up if you can’t act childish sometimes. I plan on being very serious with my work. I’d like to design machines, industrial equipment, but I’m not just going to spend my whole life doing boring things.”

And isn’t that precisely the spirit of bingo at PFW? No one else—especially adults—seems to understand the passion, but it’s consistently the most widely attended Mastodon event, with students lining up two hours before the doors open each month to ensure they get a chair.

The trio developed the chant, “In crockpot we trust, slow cook we must!” which they sometimes belt out before the round when an actual crockpot is the prize. Burk also works with another friend who creates T-shirts as a side hustle and bought neon green copies for himself, his two friends, and Dave Egolf, coordinator of student activities, who helps present bingo each month.

“If we actually got more people involved, which I really don’t expect to, I’ll get more,” Burk said. “If people join in, it’s cool, but honestly, who cares? I think people find us annoying a little bit, but we’re just having fun.”

Here’s another twist: Burk and his buddies never know if a crockpot is actually included in that month’s list of bingo prizes. There wasn’t one up for grabs on Nov. 13, or any other bingo event this year, but assurances have been made for next week’s Holiday Bingo Bonanza, an end-of-the-semester blowout with twice as many prizes.

“It’s not about the ownership, but the pursuit,” said Burk, who has never used the original crockpot and believes it’s under his bed in Student Housing on the Waterfield Campus. “We would find it very funny if we actually won a crockpot,” which would turn the myth into a true urban legend.