Kelly Mager at Winona Lake Beach with her boys.

By Shari Benyousky
Guest Columnist

WINONA LAKE — I was juggling a drink and a plate of cucumbers when Kelly Mager stuck her hand out and said hi at a KEDCO Networking Event at Hopelore in Warsaw a few weeks ago. Kelly has red-pink hair, freckles, and an open, friendly face.

Getting ready to run Trivia Night.

“HI, I’m Kelly.” She plucked at the crackers on her plate. “I run Kosciusko Happenings Online. It’s a new calendar of events for families and kids for K-County.” Kelly impressed me for 10 minutes as we chatted. “I run the Trivia night at Wings Etc on Wednesday nights too,” she grinned. “And I’ve published a few children’s books.” What?!

Kelly and her family moved to the area in April of 2014 for the Orthopedic Community. As a new mom, she found it difficult to connect with other parents and find events occurring nearby, so she decided to start her own.

She told about the difficulties of syncing multiple calendars to her website and sending out email notifications on time. She mentioned how hard it was to teach herself the basics of lingo: words like CCS and HTML and resolution. Yes, she did this without the benefit of teenagers in the house to help her navigate. As a matter of fact, she did this all while managing three little boys under the age of 8. But being a mom isn’t her only important role.

Kelly As Wings Trivia Night Director

I gathered some friends to visit one of Kelly’s Trivia Nights at Wings Etc. This event runs every Wednesday from 7-8 p.m. Around 6:40 that day Kelly set up at a table with a microphone and speakers. Her voice could be heard throughout the place as she passed out scoresheets and explained the trivia rules. And no, looking up the answer on your phone won’t help.

What a team attempts to do isn’t to answer to the trivia question, it’s to guess the answers that previous teams guessed. For example, one question might be: “Name something you keep in the fridge,” which might have as one of its potential answers the word ice.

Trivia Night score sheet.

Around us we heard teams guffawing and discussing their answers. The fact that ice comes from the freezer not the fridge doesn’t matter in this case.

Another question with a strange answer was: “Name an animal from Africa.” One of the answers was “tiger.” Of course, tigers don’t come from Africa, but it doesn’t matter to the trivia game — your team is attempting to think like OTHER teams.

Kelly has a good time with this concept keeping the action moving. “Trust your gut!” she calls out.

Trivia Teams choose their own names for the night. Kelly calls out the team rankings often. The night we attended, 18 teams competed. Team names that impressed us included: “Trivia Newton John,” “The Lords of the Wings,” and “The Dudes.” The team winner for the night was “Epic Fail.” This team is so regular that they have their own Team Name Slip to deliver answers to Kelly each round.

At the end of the night, after the whoops and groans had died down and teams returned to their boneless wings, Kelly came to our team table (by the way, we did epically fail this contest).

She told us this was her seventh year, and she knew many of the regulars by name. One of the people at my table asked her what about doing trivia she liked. She paused for a moment. “That’s a great question. I think it brings creativity to my life!”

Tip

Go by 6:30 p.m. if you want to make an order and have food. Wings, Etc. which is located at 3416 Lake City Highway, Warsaw, gets busy quickly on Wednesdays! By the way, if your team is good at this, the top three winners get vouchers to use for future Wings food.

Kelly As K-County Event Calendar Manager

A few days after Trivia, I met Kelly at Winona Lake Beach Park to follow up. I found her on the beach, her toes deep in sand as she helped her three boys build a sandcastle. She wore a huge floppy hat. “We don’t tan. We burn!” she informed me.

Kelly Mager, second from left, in a photo when she joined the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce.

I asked her how she had developed the idea for the events calendar online. Kelly smoothed the top of a sand wall. “After we moved here, I made it my mission to find and learn everything I could do with my kids.” She gestured to the twins who were running from the water to the castle.

“I like to make informed choices, but it was hard to find things that we could all do together. When the boys were younger, I called my emerging events calendar Mini-Mischief Managed. Those were events for ages 0-5. But now my youngest will be aging out of that, and I needed to expand, so Kosciusko Happenings was born!”

“Mom? Mom?” one twin tugged on her arm. “Can I eat another sandwich? I’m hungry!” The food disappeared in a couple of bites and off he went to play before the next Winona Lake day camp class time.

Kelly and her family spend many days in Winona connecting with other families and kids who spend their summers doing the same.

Tip

During summer, any kid can get a free lunch at the beach from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Details here.

Kelly As Author

Kelly has self-published four books about parenting. Topics range from “How to Broadcast Baseball” to ways to de-stress and manage as a mom or a dad. She frequently talks to local groups and schools about her journey. She dug into her satchel and pulled out a copy.

“I always carry some around with me!” she grinned. You can find out more about her titles here.

Cover of Kelly Meger’s book “Ways For Moms To Stay Sane”

I asked Kelly how she started writing. “During COVID, I felt very alone.” She paused to check the level of sunburn on one son’s skin. “I went online to connect with other moms and I couldn’t find things to do with my 18-month-old twins every day. I wrote the books because I couldn’t find anything which answered my questions on those topics!”

This summarizes Kelly. If she doesn’t know the answer, she researches until she finds it. If she doesn’t know where to find that answer, she asks people until she knows.

If you have children in Kosciusko County, check out her information page or her books. Find her giving talks in classrooms and libraries or playing with her kids on the beach. Thanks for making K-County a better place, Kelly Mager!

Tip

You can meet Kelly at these upcoming events:

• North Webster Community Public Library at 11 a.m. June 27.
• Warsaw Library Stories at Kelly Park 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 11.
• Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club at Creighton’s Crazy Egg 7 a.m. Wednesday, July 12.

Know of an interesting place or person which you’d like to see featured behind the scenes someday? Send SB Communications LLC an email at [email protected].