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Focus On Faculty & Staff
'Fortune' Smiles on Instructor
A dental hygiene instructor was the night's second-biggest winner on a September episode of "Wheel of Fortune," spritely spinning and solving her way to $11,900 in cash.
Chosen from a pool of hopefuls when the bright-yellow "Wheelmobile" visited the Mohegan Sun casino in Wilkes-Barre in May, Kim Speicher survived several rounds of auditions on multiple days before flying with her family to an early August taping in Culver City, Calif.
She referenced that family – Tom, her "wonderful husband of 20 years" (and a writer/video editor at Penn College), and their "beautiful" 10-year-old daughter, Katie – during the show's preliminaries. She also acknowledged the college, from which she received two degrees in the 1990s, when host Pat Sajak asked to whom she teaches dental hygiene.
"To dental hygiene students, Pat," she helpfully offered.
"Wheel of Fortune" is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and Speicher has been a fan nearly from the beginning, watching with her grandmother on a floor-model television while growing up in Canada.
That enthusiasm and time-tested love of the game shone through during the show's airing, as Speicher bantered like a TV veteran, even telling Sajak, "You have nice teeth" during a momentary lull in the action.
Speicher openly wished only to solve a puzzle on the air and not embarrass herself in the process. And solve, she did, nailing a pair of toss-ups worth a total of $5,000, the answers to which were "train station" and "bank teller."
Sandwiched in-between was a '90s-themed puzzle, the gasp-worthy $6,900 solution to which was "'Forrest Gump' Wins Oscar for Best Picture."
– Tom Wilson, writer/editor-PCToday
