Harris Bunker

A place to discuss topics affecting quizbowlers as a community rather than quizbowl as a game.
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darkermatters
Kimahri
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Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:15 pm

Harris Bunker

Post by darkermatters »

Hi everyone,

It is with great sadness that I let you all know that Harris Bunker (MSU '19, UCSD economics) passed away on Oct. 19 after a long and difficult battle with medical issues beginning last year. He was 24.

Those who knew Harris in quiz bowl remember him as a talented player, writer, and dedicated member of the community, but more than that, Harris was consummately a scholar. He was someone who endlessly sought knowledge not just for the sake of recall in trivia competitions, but also for the sake of using it to better understand the world around him and make that world a better place through his research on economic policy. Above all, I and many others will remember him as a friend.

https://www.freep.com/obituaries/det106946

Please consider donating to the American Red Cross or bethematch.com, or volunteering to give blood in his memory. He was lost far too young, and will be dearly missed.
Jay Cizeski
UConn '19 --> UCSD
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AKKOLADE
Sin
Posts: 15773
Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2003 8:08 am

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by AKKOLADE »

Fred Morlan
University of Kentucky CoP, 2017
International Quiz Bowl Tournaments, CEO, co-owner
former PACE member, president, etc.
former hsqbrank manager, former NAQT writer & subject editor, former hsqb Administrator/Chief Administrator
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meebles127
Tidus
Posts: 572
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2017 9:27 am
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by meebles127 »

Be the Match also serves as a donor registry for those in need of stem cell transplants. It is free and incredibly easy to sign up, with the process taking no more than 5 minutes. You must be at least 18 years old to register, ideally younger than 40, and meet their health qualifications. If you are ever selected to donate, bethematch pays for all of your expenses related to the donation, and the vast majority of donations are collected through apheresis - a simple procedure similar to the one used for platelet donations.

Sign up if you can, encourage your friends and family to do so, and if you can't be a donor, donate to the cause.

---

Harris was a wonderful person and an even greater friend. I'll never forget the conversations we shared about everything from economics to Pokémon. I'm happy that our paths crossed and we got to work together on various projects. I know I'm gonna miss him.
Em Gunter
Club President, University of Virginia
Tournament Director, 2023 Chicago Open
Assistant Tournament Director, 2022 and 2023 ACF Nationals

Author of: My Guide to High School Outreach and So You Want to Buy a Buzzer System

"That's got to be one of the most useful skills anyone has ever gotten from quizbowl." -John Lawrence
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Arch Stanton
Lulu
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Joined: Thu Oct 31, 2013 2:07 pm

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by Arch Stanton »

Rest in peace, Harris.
Dillon Edwards
ex-MSU
A Dim-Witted Saboteur
Yuna
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Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 12:31 pm
Location: Indiana

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

When Harris said he was going to do something, you knew he was going to do it. That's an incredibly rare quality in any community as it is in the world as a whole. Another remarkable thing about him was that no matter how much we argued online or sometimes in real life, he would have thought through his position beforehand and would never take anything personally afterward: we were still on the same team and we were still friends. Harris was also an incredibly persistent person. Subjects like Detroit sports, tax policy, and Deleuze that would have defeated lesser men were his bread and butter. There are so many great memories I have of him, and it hurts a lot to know there won't be more of them. He was a special teammate, a special friend, and a special person in general. Rest in peace, buddy.
Jakob M. (they/them)
Michigan State '21, Indiana '2?
"No one has ever organized a greater effort to get people interested in pretending to play quiz bowl"
-Ankit Aggarwal
rxailagan
Lulu
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Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2010 11:34 pm
Location: Detroit, MI

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by rxailagan »

I had the honor of meeting Harris when he started quizbowl during his freshman year at Grosse Pointe North. Him and I would bond as we were the only 2 from GPN who stayed involved in the quizbowl community and we were both invested in improving the high school quizbowl circuit in southeast Michigan. Quizbowl is a better place because of him.

Other tributes are being collected here: https://www.verheyden.org/obituary/6182 ... in-Bunker/
Roxanne Ilagan

Grosse Pointe North '12
University of Michigan '16
Wayne State University '18, SOM '23
Formerly PACE, ACF
Justice William Brennan
Lulu
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Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:28 am

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by Justice William Brennan »

Given that Penn Bowl 2021 was Harris' final QB project, we wanted to highlight how much we appreciated his excellent work editing social science and his insightful comments across the set. With his parents' permission, we have donated his editor's fee to bethematch.com in his memory.
Nitin Rao
Langley '17
Penn '21
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t-bar
Tidus
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Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2009 4:12 pm

Re: Harris Bunker

Post by t-bar »

Hey all, I'm reopening this thread to share some personal news and testimony. As a few people already know, I signed up for Be the Match in 2021 at Harris' suggestion and matched with a potential recipient last year. This week, I completed a process to extract marrow from my hip bone, one of two ways in which blood stem cells are collected. I won't know for some time whether the recipient's transplant procedure is successful or how their recovery goes, but I'm doing well so far. I'm very glad that Harris encouraged people to sign up and I like to think he'd be proud to have indirectly contributed to at least one match.

The process was not exactly easy—I had blood drawn on five separate occasions before the donation itself, and I can expect my full recovery to take four to six weeks. But NMDP (the new brand identity for Be the Match) was very proactive and helpful through the entire thing, and as Em said upthread they paid for everything. If you are between the ages of 18 and 40 (ideally 18 and 35) and meet their medical requirements, you should consider joining their registry if you haven't already.

A few miscellaneous thoughts:
  • Donation is a medium-disruptive life event, bigger than a typical vacation but a lot smaller than, say, receiving treatment for a life-threatening blood disease.
  • The speed of my match was unusual. Most potential donors will not match with anyone, and those that do may wait years before getting a call. But once you get on the registry, you can in principle become a donor at any point before your 61st birthday.
  • Having said that, once you match, time is of the essence. Put in some thought now about the commitments you would need to make to go through with the donation process. You can choose not to continue at any time, but the costs and risks for the recipient rise dramatically the longer you take to decide.
  • If you match, expect to travel for the marrow or stem cell extraction. There are not a lot of fully-fledged marrow transplant centers in the US, and the task of coordinating your schedule with that of the recipient is a tightly constrained one.

If you have questions about my experience, please don't hesitate to DM or email me. For general questions about the process, the Be the Match website has lots of helpful information.

Thanks again to Harris, and to everyone else in the quizbowl community who has helped to honor his memory.
Stephen Eltinge
Then: TJ, MIT, Yale, PACE, NAQT
Now: ACF
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