Carson City native big winner on ‘Jeopardy!’

Rachel Lindgren considers herself to be more of a dog person, but it was her knowledge of cats that helped keep her winning streak on Jeopardy! going.

The Carson City native, a 2009 Carson High graduate who now lives in Bend, Ore., ran her winning streak to five on Thursday night, winning $10,800 to run her total to $75,199 on the show. Lindgren began her winning run on the show last Friday night and will end the week by continuing her run on the show tonight.

You can catch Lindgren on Jeopardy! when it airs at 7 tonight on KOLO Channel 8. The episodes Lindgren participated in were actually taped in October.

But Lindgren said it’s been fun watching the shows with her friends.

“It was pretty unbelievable,” said Lindgren about her experience on the show. “Especially amazing watching it all with everybody with everybody’s reactions.”

Lindgren also said there’s plenty of people she knows from Carson City watching.

“I know a lot of my friends in Carson City are watching,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of Carsonites watching.”

It was Lindgren’s knowledge of cats in one category on Wednesday that helped her to run up her money total on her way to running her winning streak to four.

“I love animals in general. I was more of a dog person,” said Lindgren about growing up. “Now I seem like a crazy cat lady which is fine. That category was great for me.”

Another factor that helped her win on Wednesday was her answer of REO Speedwagon was originally ruled wrong by host Alex Trebek, but the judges later ruled the answer was right, leading to a $3,200 swing in Lindgren’s favor.

“I was pretty pumped to get that one,” Lindgren said. “That was a nice surprise.”

She eventually played it safe on the final Jeopardy question and even though she got the answer wrong, she still won with $10,999. The answer was Publishers Clearing House, but Lindgren just wrote Publishers.

“I thought it was just Publishers,” Lindgren said. “That was a bummer in retrospect.”

Lindgren, who earned degrees in biology and forestry from the University of Nevada, Reno, began the process of trying out for Jeopardy! by taking a 50-question quiz online in which you only have a couple of seconds to answer each question.

Then came the in-person tryout in Seattle in which 16 people, including Lindgren, tried out. After taking another 50-question quiz and participating in a simulated Jeopardy game, Lindgren was chosen for the show.

About Trebek, Lindgren said, “He’s a great guy. We don’t get to speak that much to him for legal reasons. He’s really funny. He’s got a goofy sense of humor. I was surprised how funny he was.”

On handling the pressure of the show, Lindgren said, “There’s the pressure not to blurt out something stupid, which I’m sure I did a couple of times. I don’t pay attention to the other contestants too much.”