Fort Wayne last on list

When freshman Clare Bircheff found that Men's Health magazine ranked her hometown Fort Wayne as the dumbest in the country, she was dumbfounded. \n"I just wonder where they get the right to think they can tell us how much knowledge people have," Bircheff said. "Shouldn't they be more concerned with health than knowledge? How can Men's Health base a whole city on whether it's dumb or not?"\nBircheff is one of a large population of IU students from Fort Wayne who heard through the news, relatives or friends that their hometown was perhaps not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Fort Wayne took the top spot, falling beneath Corpus Christi, Texas., Laredo, Texas, Las Vegas and Newark, N.J., for Men's Health's recognition as least intelligent.\nSophomore Brian Adams found out about the dubious distinction while watching the news this week. Adams is a member of Phi Kappa Psi and is the only brother there from Fort Wayne. \nThat, he said, meant he had to endure more than a few jokes this week.\n"The guys in the house gave me a hard time, but I don't think it's a big deal," Adams said. "They've been making fun of me, but I just thought it was pretty funny."\nAdams said he had heard Fort Wayne was the fattest city in the country before, but dumbest took him a little bit by surprise. If it were up to him, he said the dumbest city would probably be somewhere in Tennessee or Kentucky.\n"I was surprised," he said. "I never run into many stupid people in Fort Wayne."\nSenior and Fort Wayne native Nicholas Byall's cousin told him about the ranking as a joke. \nHe said it reminds him of the Princeton Review naming IU the No. 1 party school in 2002. In that case, he said the ranking was off because there were extraordinary circumstances, namely huge celebrations following the basketball team's run to the national championship game. \nSo did Fort Wayne do something really dumb recently to skew the results?\n"No, not that I can think of," Byall said. "I don't see how it's any different than any other city. I don't think anybody is making any big decisions on where to live by a survey like that." \nFreshman Whitney Beeson said she didn't think her hometown was particularly dense, and wondered how anyone could judge an entire city for its intelligence.\n"I don't understand how you could come up with that," she said. "I don't know how you could classify a 'dumb city.'"\nThe Men's Health rankings weren't all bad news. The magazine also listed the flip side, naming the smartest cities in the country. Minneapolis took the top spot, followed by Boston, Denver, St. Paul, Minn. and Seattle.\nSenior Debbie Stein hails from Minneapolis and said she knows a few students from Fort Wayne.\n"I know we have a lot of desirable qualities in our city, and those have been created because of intelligent people that live there," she said. "Everybody always thinks Minnesota is all farmland in the middle of nowhere, so anything that can help us, I'll brag about."\nStein said she will have to think a little while to come up with just the right thing to tell her "less intelligent" Fort Wayne friends.\n"Oh, it will be good, don't you worry," she said.\nWhile most Fort Wayne natives laughed off the ranking, Byall offered a somewhat more optimistic viewpoint.\n"At least Fort Wayne was mentioned," he said. "It's kind of interesting to see your hometown in a big magazine with big circulation. It peaks your interest a little bit. But it's the same as if it was something good happening, if it wasn't being the dumbest city in the country."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Gavin Lesnick at glesnick@indiana.edu.