• September 2, 2008

  ISU Theatre's Doris Nash is a "Jeopardy" champ

• More than a few times, Doris Nash has "auditioned" for the television show "Jeopardy." But time after time, she wasn't selected.
  
  So when the popular game show started offering an "application test" online, she decided to take one more stab at it.
  
  "I've been thinking about this for years," said Nash, ISU Theatre's costumer supervisor. "I've tried the contestant searches, sent in e-mails but that's really the luck of the draw.
  
  "I thought I would have a better shot at the online test."
  Even then, Nash should have been worried. "Jeopardy" producers were expecting around 5,000 individuals to complete the show's first online test. Instead, more than 100,000 took the test, including Nash.

  Nash did well enough on the online test to warrant an in-person interview with "Jeopardy." There she took another quiz, had her photo taken and was interviewed by the producers.
  
  She also "sort of played" the game to see how she would react in a similar question. Then it was "thanks, we'll call you."
  
  But Nash didn't hear. And didn't hear.
  
  "You hear all the time about people that try numerous times to get on so I had almost given up when I got a message at the end of February 2008 asking me to come out to Los Angeles to tape the show," Nash said.
  
  "My first response was to scream."
  
  Spring break was spent in Hollywood appearing on "Jeopardy." Two weeks of the show is taped over a two-day period.
  
  All the contestants arrive at the studios early in the morning and go through an orientation. They get to practice writing their name on the screen and play with the buttons.
  
  Nash actually appeared in the last of the five shows taped on the first day.
  
  "That might have helped me, watching the four previous shows from the audience," she says. "I was able to calm down."
  
  That wasn't easy, though, because the audience that day included three of the biggest "Jeopardy" winners of all time including all-time champ Ken Jennings.
  
  Still, when it came time for Nash to play the actual game she excelled, winning her first game and $28,801. "I was hopeful just to win enough to cover my trip out there," she said.
  
  In that game, Nash did "very well" in a couple of categories including "Raise the Flag" and "Women of the World." She also got the Final Jeopardy question correct in the category of "19th Century Science."
  
  The second game wasn't quite as good. She says she had a couple of mental lapses and the categories weren't as good for her as the previous game had been and she finished second.

  Back in Ames, Nash could tell people she was going to appear on "Jeopardy" but she couldn't reveal the results.
  
  And then, when the shows actually aired this past June, she was at a theatre festival in Santa Fe and was unable to watch the show when it first aired. She has since seen both shows.
  
  "My first reaction when I saw myself on TV was ‘I was sure glad I had lost all that weight,'" she said. "Plus it didn't appear like I was a nervous wreck."
  
  Nash's appearance on "Jeopardy" had other benefits besides her winnings.
  
  "I got phone calls and emails from people I hadn't heard from in a long time," she said. "Former students called. Even my old high school boyfriend saw the show.
  
  "Being on the show was a dream come true. Winning was icing on the cake."
  

Doris Nash