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VAUGHN WINCHELL ENDS 5-GAME ‘JEOPARDY!’ WIN STREAK, CLAIMS $103,103 IN PRIZE MONEY

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CULVER CITY, CALIF. (January 2, 2015) – Vaughn Winchell, a 50-year-old stay-at-home dad and graduate student from Columbia, Md., ended his five-game JEOPARDY! winning streak today, finishing with $103,103 in total prize money.

 

“The money still doesn’t seem real,” Winchell said after his fifth game. “It’s as if I racked up 103,103 points over six games, but that is still pretty gratifying in itself. I’ll admit I went online to see how many players have won $100,000 or more in regular-season play, not   counting tournaments, and it’s about 60. I never expected anything like this.”

 

Winchell holds a B.A. in Geological Sciences from Harvard (1986) and an M.A. in English from the University of Virginia (1988) and is pursuing an M.A. in Mathematics at the University of Houston, (expected 2016). He feels that the broad range of his studies contributed to his success on JEOPARDY!.

 

“In a way, I might have an ideal education for JEOPARDY! because I kept switching fields of study,” he said. “This game rewards broad knowledge more than specialization. So, maybe all JEOPARDY! hopefuls should focus on knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff, and not worry about getting Ph.D.s.”

 

Winchell isn’t sure how he will spend all of his winnings yet, aside from paying taxes, but he does know that some of the prize money will go to various charities.

 

“I will make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in memory of my father, who was an oncologist,” said Winchell. “My mother was always interested in girls’ education because she herself almost didn’t get to go to college because, in 1954, her loving and well-meaning immigrant parents genuinely thought girls didn’t need to go to college. So in her memory, I’ll make a donation to Save the Children, to support their work educating girls in the developing  world.”

 

JEOPARDY!, America’s Favorite Quiz Show® and its host, Alex Trebek, began their 31st season September 15, 2014. The top-ranked game show among homes with 25 million viewers each week, JEOPARDY! holds the Guinness World Records® title for the most Emmy® Awards won by a TV game show (31 Emmys), including the 2014 Emmy® for Outstanding Game Show. In 2014, JEOPARDY! won the inaugural Writers Guild of America award for Outstanding Writing for Quiz and Audience Participation; it is also the recipient of a 2011 Peabody Award. JEOPARDY! is produced by Sony Pictures Television, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company; it is distributed domestically by CBS Television Distribution and internationally by CBS Television International, both units of CBS Corp. For more information, please visit Jeopardy.com.

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