Long-time fan of the show for wordsmiths shines on air

By THERESA NOVAK

Gazette-Times City Editor

For more than 20 years, Dan Shapiro has played along with National Public Radio's weekend brain teaser for wordsmiths, the "Sunday Puzzle," hosted by Liane Hansen.

"I go back to the days when you had to send in a postcard," he said Tuesday.

Sunday, he aced it. He had the correct answers for all 10 pairs of puzzle clues given by "puzzle master" Will Shortz, the editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle - although he had an assist on the last one.

Shapiro was selected to play on air from among the people who correctly answered the May 17 challenge:

"Think of a six-letter word in which the third letter is 'S.' Remove the 'S' and you'll be left with a five-letter word that means the opposite of the six-letter one. What is it? Clue: The six-letter word has two syllables. The five-letter one has one.

The answer: Resign, reign.

Shapiro said he spent five minutes pondering the challenge. "The next day it came to me in 12 seconds," he said during the broadcast.

On Sunday's program, Shapiro was given this on-air challenge:

"Each clue is a pair of four-letter words. Each can be found inside the first and last names, respectively, of a famous person. For example, given "rend" and "rase," the answer would be "Brendan Fraser," the actor.

Some of the clues and Shapiro's correct answers included:

• "Arlo" "Rand" - Marlon Brando.

• "Acid" "Ming" - Placido Domingo

• "Rove" "Elan" - Grover Cleveland.

Shapiro said he was "in the zone" when he answered one challenge after the next with barely a pause. Clearly impressed by his stellar showing, host Hansen joked, "Do you want my job?"

Shapiro won a dictionary, a number of crossword puzzle books by Shortz, the deluxe edition of Scrabble and a "Weekend Edition" lapel pin marking his win.

The dictionary and pin, he's going to keep, but Shapiro said he'll give the puzzle books to the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and the Scrabble board to the Senior Center.

Shapiro, who is the administrator at the Holistic Chiropractic Care center at 915 N.W. 36th St., where his wife, Virginia Shapiro, D.C., is the chiropractor, said he has played word games and written since he was a child.

And he was no stranger to radio. While still at Bowdoin College in Maine, he worked on the campus radio station. In the 1970s and '80s, he was a radio newsman along coastal Maine. And why did he do so well Sunday?

"I say this with complete humility; I'm fascinated at the way the brain works," he said, " -. I have a mind that recognizes patterns in words."

Readers can listen to Shapiro winning his radio challenge online, at http://www.npr.org/tem plates/story/story.php? storyId=4473090.