Casper Woman’s Jeopardy! Run Ends With Memories To Last A Lifetime
She said this round was as fun as the first one, at least right up to the last couple of minutes. Casper’s Pat Greiner, one of Townsquare Media's own, bid a fond farewell to Jeopardy! after placing second in the episode that aired Monday. She was defending her championship after winning Friday’s game, and she said things started off well with a fast pace game with fellow competitors Greg and Maren. It was when they got to Double Jeopardy that things changed.
“I saw the category ‘NBA Rookies of the Year.’ I could almost hear the sizzle of my goose beginning to cook. Well, maybe Greg wasn’t a basketball fan either. But he was. Maren got the low point answer in that category, but he got the other four – a whopping $5600 worth of answers that I had no clue about. He was well ahead, Double Jeopardy was almost over, and I made a stab at getting a little closer to him before Final Jeopardy -- and missed. From that day forward, I will always, always remember that the volcanic mineral product that makes up one of Dominica’s main exports is pumice. Not lava. Pumice.
That miss bumped my total below half of his. Had I been at the halfway point or more, I would have bet it all on Final Jeopardy, and I would have won, because I was the only one of us three who got that one correct. And unlike Friday, I wasn’t guessing this time. As soon as they read the answer, those years of study in American Lit kicked in. Who could a journal named Leviathan be about except Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick? (In fact, I thought it was pretty easy and was surprised that the other two didn’t get it.)”
Pat says she knew she couldn’t catch Greg, so she made her bet with an eye to coming up second place instead of third.
“I was pretty confident in the category (American Authors), so I figured how much Maren could end up with if she bet all she had and got it right, and bet just enough to finish ahead of her if that happened. How much you score doesn’t matter if you don’t win – only the winner gets the dollars they score. (Second place gets $2,000 and third place gets $1,000.)
So I ended up with total winnings of $16,800 – not bad for two days’ work. Actual time, 44 minutes of work. Subtract the taxes, the cost for flights and hotels both to attend the auditions and to play, and I still ended up a little bit ahead. But the best thing I came away with was the experience, and memories I will have the rest of my life. Being on Jeopardy! Was a big deal to me, but I’ve been amazed and touched at how supportive and enthusiastic so many people have been. I’ve had more kind messages than I can count, from friends and strangers alike. That’s one of the great things about living in Wyoming – it really is like having an extended family that’s as big as the whole state.”