Area native competes on ‘Jeopardy!’

Perryville, Missouri, native Londyn Lorenz won’t be advancing to the finals in the “Jeopardy!” College Championship next week.

Lorenz, a sophomore studying Arabic and international studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, trailed her opponents throughout the game broadcast Tuesday, but came from behind in Final Jeopardy! with the correct answer and an all-in wager.

Still, it wasn’t enough to best her opponent, Nibir Sarma, who also had the correct answer in Final Jeopardy!

The clue in the category “Country Names” challenged contestants to give the country named for a cartographic feature that passes through a town within its borders: Guayllabamba.

Lorenz, host Alex Trebek noted, was “on this like a shot,” and with her correct response, Ecuador (the cartographic feature being the equator), doubled her score to $14,000.

Lorenz started watching the show at the age of 4 when her father would tune the television to a familiar game show, if just to keep her occupied so she wouldn’t ask him incessant questions.

“I didn’t know what to expect, going in,” Lorenz said. “It was a bucket-list item, so I was glad to check that off.”

Lorenz, a Saxony Lutheran High School graduate, took the Teen Tournament test when she was in eighth grade, but didn’t qualify.

“But, you make more money in the college tournament, so I’m OK with it,” she quipped.

Since she’d taken the test previously, her father was still getting the email reminders about upcoming tests. He forwarded one to her last fall, she said, and she and a student she was tutoring in calculus both signed up to take it — and it turned out to be a heated test. Five minutes to answer 50 questions. She said 18,000 people took it online, and 30 were selected for in-person interviews.

“It was kind of based on how many questions you’d get right, but also kind of random,” Lorenz said. “I’m lucky I got it.”

Of the 30 interviewed in person, 15 contestants and one alternate were selected, Lorenz said.

She went back to California for taping in February, and said she was surprised when she watched the episode air last week.

“It’s just as quick as on TV,” she said. “I guess I was living in slow motion, and now I’m watching it, nervous.”

Some of the questions she answered, she doesn’t even remember, Lorenz said.

The game is played tournament style, with a winner each day and the four top-scoring nonwinners, Lorenz said, and the week was filmed in one day. For that entire day, contestants were sequestered in the green room.

“We couldn’t know how others performed. It could affect our strategy,” Lorenz said. So, when they weren’t on camera, contestants were playing Jumbling Towers (off-brand Jenga) and watching movies to drown out the sound of taping nearby.

Semifinals taping was the second day, she said.

The producers were so nice, she added, and the entire “Jeopardy!” community was welcoming and fun.

And host Alex Trebek?

Lorenz said that during taping, Trebek was waiting on test results amid his battle with pancreatic cancer, but he didn’t let that overshadow the event.

“Alex is so much nicer in person than on television,” Lorenz said. “He’s like America’s fun uncle. He’s great.”