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Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 9/27/07 |
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In
the News Archive - Year:
November 8, 2004 UWGB student to appear on Jeopardy By Anna Krejci The question: What a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay student did in
October.
UWGB senior Christina Maes will be a contestant on the TV game show
"Jeopardy!" during the show's College Championships. A senior majoring
in English, Maes plans on carrying out the day's normal routine of classes
and work leading up to the nationally televised program airing Nov. 16.
Maes, a Weidner Center box-office employee with a double minor in philosophy
and humanistic studies, will be competing for a $100,000 first prize.
The second- and third-place winners receive $50,000 and $25,000. Semifinalists
take home $10,000 while contenders eliminated after the first week of
episodes receive $5,000.
It's not exactly the $2 million-plus "Jeopardy!" juggernaut Jennings
has won over the last few months, but it's hardly chump change, either.
Maes applied to compete on the Internet, took a 50-question test in
Chicago, followed by an interview and mock game, and was ultimately one
of 15 contestants chosen out of thousands who applied.
"I had a good feeling when I left the auditorium, but I didn't expect
anything," she said of the interview.
Maes knew she had shown the test administrators her "fun-loving" personality,
she said. The episode was taped in front of a live audience last month
at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.
She attributed her confidence on stage to acting in high school and
teaching religion at her church.
She feared ringing in without knowing the answer and not being the first
contestant to buzz in. Both fears came true, she said, but that did not
stop her from competing.
Make-up crews attended to her four times the day the first episode was
taped.
"I was afraid they were going to make me look like Meemee from ('The
Drew Carey Show')," Maes said, referring to the heavily made-up character
on the TV sitcom.
"My worries were unfounded," she added.
Maes thought three-time Daytime Emmy award-winning game show host Alex
Trebek might have a serious, "stiff" personality. On the contrary.
"He's absolutely hilarious," she said.
Producers stopped the taping of one episode three times to determine
the validity of the contestants' answers.
Trebek threw one of his shoes at the producers and told the crowd he
usually aims his shoes toward defunct monitors, Maes recounted.
'Maes' father and younger sister were in the audience during the show's
taping. Her sister held a sign that read, "Go cheesecake!"
"Cheesecake" was Maes' nickname given to her by her sister.
"I make awesome homemade cheesecake," Maes said as justification for
the title.
She does not want her "Jeopardy!" appearance to have occupied her whole
15 minutes of fame. The episode airing a week from Tuesday might one day
be an amusing piece of Maes' biography if she wins the Pulitzer Prize
or Nobel Prize for literature.
Maes hopes to pursue an English graduate degree at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and teach at the college level.
Besides work and school, Maes is editor of the Campus Journal of Arts,
a member of the Campus Writers' Union, vice chair on her church's pastoral
council and religious education teacher and a Habitat for Humanity volunteer.
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