Contestant Blogs
This Week's Contestant
Mary S.
| Theme: | Halloween |
|---|---|
| Hometown: | Gowanda, NY |
| Week of: | 10-24-2011 |
POSTED 10-24
My Wheel of Fortune adventure started back in March when I received an email stating that I had been selected to audition to be a contestant on Wheel of Fortune. It was completely out of the blue and at first I wasn't sure if it was real, but as I read the email over and over, I knew it had to be legitimate. I immediately called my husband and asked if he had anything to do with this. I wasn't aware, but he had signed me up online one night when we were watching the show; he was impressed at how quickly I was solving the puzzles. He mentioned that I should tryout for the show, and pretty much left it at that.
My love for Wheel of Fortune started much earlier though, I've always had a knack for word games and puzzles. When I was younger, I used to watch the show with my family almost every night and tried my hardest to solve the puzzles before my mom; she was so good.
When the opportunity to try out for the show landed in my hands, I had to jump on it. The audition was scheduled for about 2 weeks after I received the email. I booked my flight and took the day off of work. As the audition was in Los Angeles, I was able to fly down and back in the same day from San Francisco.
The audition was filled with about 75 people with one thing in common, to try and get picked as a contestant. We started the audition by going around the room and calling out letters to solve puzzles, the first letter I called was not in the puzzle so I had to sit back down. I was hoping to get another chance to prove I could actually solve a puzzle and thankfully I did. After that we took a written test similar to hangman with half filled in phrases. The tests were graded and round two of the auditions were underway. The contestant coordinators called about 20-25 names and if your name was called you made it through to the next round. I jumped up and down with excitement when I heard my name called. After a few more rounds of solving puzzles, we were released and told that we would be notified by mail within two weeks if we were selected to be a contestant.
Over the next few days, I checked the mail the minute I got home from work. Finally, one week later, I received the best piece of mail ever. The confirmation letter informing me that I was chosen to be a contestant had arrived. That month, the excitement only seemed to build as my husband and I found out that we were expecting our first child. With confirmation that I was going to be on the show I had the new task of waiting for a phone call from the game show coordinators to inform me which day I would be taping. I received the phone call in early July for a taping the following week; the show would air the week of Halloween. Immediately, my husband and I booked our flights and my great friend Tiffany was able to clear her schedule for the day to attend the show.
On July 13th, we headed down to Los Angeles for a quick overnight trip. I could barely sleep that night, all I could think about was my dream of playing Wheel of Fortune live and meeting Pat and Vanna. Tune in on Monday, October 24th, to see how I did.