Watch Dean of Students Samantha Meier compete on “Jeopardy!” this Friday night

Although the halls of GHS are buzzing with talk of holiday travels and traditions, Thanksgiving is not the only event that students and staff have to look forward to this week. On Friday night, the school’s Dean of Students, Dr. Samantha Meier, will be a contestant on the popular game show “Jeopardy!”. 

Like many other applicants, watching “Jeopardy!” was a weekly tradition for Meier, who would always watch it with her mother. 

“My mom passed away when I was sixteen,” Meier said. “I knew that she always wanted to go on, and she never obviously got the opportunity to because it was a very different type of tryout then. For me, it was really kind of paying homage to my mom.” 

Meier’s application process began with the Anytime Test, a fifty question test that anybody who is eighteen or older and a resident of the United States or Canada can take. 

From there, applicants who pass the exam take a similar exam via Zoom call to ensure applicants are answering the questions themselves. Those who meet these requirements are then added to the random contestant pool, where they have two years to be selected to audition and compete in a mock game. 

“The first time I’d gone through and made it all the way to the audition, I didn’t get selected,” Meier said. “Then I retook the test and ended up going through the process and getting selected to go on air.” 

Typically, the show has one filming day almost every week, and five episodes are recorded on each of those days. 

The episodes releasing this week were filmed on the same day as Meier’s episode. 

“There were ten or eleven of us in the green room, and we all got to know each other,” Meier said. “You kind of form a little bond and it’s fun talking to each other since we’re all used to sitting on our couches and playing “Jeopardy!”. I know that in my green room, there was someone who had tried out twenty times.” 

Although Meier does not find her knowledge of pop culture to be very extensive, topics like science and history come much easier to her. 

“I have a garbage can brain,” Meier said. “Stuff just sticks in there. It’s just a bunch of random stuff that I happen to know about a lot of random things.” 

Although she is unable to speak about the episode itself, that has not stopped GHS staff and students – particularly Principal John Perella – from trying to decipher the outcome. 

“He has tried several times to find out what the categories were, or what the final “Jeopardy!” question was,” Meier said. 

Those of you asking yourselves the same questions, make sure to tune into local networks to see Meier compete this Friday night at 7:30.