SHORTZ, Will
(photo from Wikipedia)
A Crawfordsville HS graduate, Will has entertained the world. Born in Crawfordsville in August of 1952, he was the son of Lyle and Wilma Shortz and was raised on an Arabian Horse farm near Crawfordsville In 8th grade (Wikipedia) Will wrote a paper entitled, Puzzles as a Profession, receiving a B+. Well, his work as a puzzle maker went way beyond that. Beginning when he sold his first puzzle to Venture (youth magazine) at age 14 (npr.org/people and the source says he’s the only person in the world with a college degree in Enigmatology the study of puzzles – IU 1974). Graduating from IU his work was included in many ways and his 2008 commencement speech at his Alma Mater highlighted graduates who had “unconventional majors.” Two years later, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Wabash (and one from IU in 2018). 2012 brought an honorary award from the “Association for Games & Puzzles International for creating interest in mechanical puzzles (keeping up with his trade). Quite versatile, Will was a guest on TV talk shows (Martha Stewart; Oprah; Daily Show) and appeared on the Millionaire on the “Ask the Expert” timeline. That’s not all, he was even on the Simpsons featured in the episode, “Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words.” (2008 – Wikipedia), and obviously presented the answers (2015) on Jeopardy in the category, “The New York Times Crossword.” Movies and such have been on Wordplay focusing Shortz and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and did cameos in “three of the Hallmark Crossword Mystery films and in A Puzzle to Die For, he played a table tennis player as he loved table tennis, even owning a large table tennis club in his current home town in Pleasantville, New York. Other than his hobby love (he has played 1000 days straight more than once) he likes to bike, read, travel and collect antique puzzle books (promising to leave them to the Jerry Slocum Puzzle Room in IU’s Lilly Library when he passes. His health was reasonable until Feb 4th two years ago when he had a serious stroke and another while in the hospital. He did not return to editing the NY Times crosswords until the end of the year. He even brought the 186th Annual Convention of the National Puzzlers’ League to IU this year in July 2026 (Herald Times July 6, 2026). For sure, words are his specialty, and he wrote several articles as well as given many speeches. Impressive man plus he has one of the longest bibliographies I’ve seen in a Wikipedia entry (59) and I want to read ‘em all! - kbz