The Daily Collegian's award-winning Business Training Program added a new wrinkle this year: game shows.

Greg Rubin, 2004-05 customer service manager, and Business Adviser Candy Heckard joined forces to incorporate a couple of old TV favorites -- Family Feud and The Price Is Right -- into the fall and spring Business Training Program in 2004-05.

For the Collegian's version of The Price is Right, held in November and March, trainees had to come up with the correct prices for all kinds of advertising combinations to win "valuable" prizes from the Dollar Store. Who doesn't need more toilet paper?

Calculators were smoking as teams of trainees tried to come up with more and more complicated prices for the Collegian's variety of advertising products.

Then a month later the Collegian Family Feud, complete with recorded theme music and the all-important buzzer, coerced trainees to come up with the right answers in a tight timeframe, just like the famous show hosted by Richard Dawson. Again, the Dollar Store was the source for prizes. Who knew the Betty White Show DVD collection could be had for one buck?

The Business Training Program is widely recognized as one of, if not the best one of its kind in the nation. This year the program trained 70 new staff members.

"It (the training program) is demanding and thorough, but staff members who complete it are ready for anything," said Heckart, a 21-year veteran of the Collegian Professional Staff. "We have a very low attrition rate in the Business Division, which we attribute to instilling the confidence in our staff members that comes from excellent product knowledge."

Heckart is proud of the progress she's seen in the program since she arrived to guide it in 1984. The Business Department has won the College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers (CNBAM) "Best Training Program Award" two out of the past three years, an honor the Collegian has taken regular during Heckart's tenure. In addition, Collegian Business Manager Julie Columbus earned CNBAM's "Business Manager of the Year Award" for 2004-05. Former Collegian Business Manager Becky Novack won the award last year.

"I am thrilled with the evolution of our training program," Heckart said. "Making it fun with events like Collegian Family Feud and Collegian Price is Right certainly helps, too."