Butte woman competes on 'Jeopardy!', places second

While she didn’t win, Sullivan did place second and took home $2,000, she said.

Sullivan credits her love for "Jeopardy!" to her mother, Denise Sheehy, who she remembers watching the quiz show with when she was little.

“I’ve always had an interest in trivia,” Sullivan said. “Our family would play along to 'Jeopardy!', but my mom and I would get extremely competitive.”

Although Sheehy did tease Sullivan for getting second place and not wagering enough money during Final Jeopardy!, she seemed more supportive than anything.

“Now I definitely have to go on the show, I have to avenge her,” Sheehy said at the watch party Monday.

Both Sullivan and Sheehy started taking the show’s 50-question test, the first screening for potential contestants, when it became available online in the early 2000s, Sullivan said. Both made it to the second screening or audition, an in-person, 50-question video test followed by a mock "Jeopardy!" game.

“They don’t tell you how you do in the video audition, so you just have to do your best and hope you’ll get a call back,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan was called back for a second in-person audition and then, in mid-September, she heard she would be on the show. 

She said that while she was excited to be on the show, it was bad timing, as her mom had broken her hip the week before.

“She wasn’t able to meet Alex Trebek in person with me,” Sullivan said.

In October, Sullivan flew to Hollywood.

She said on filming day, a shuttle picked up contestants from their hotels around 7 a.m. After filling out paperwork and getting their makeup done at the "Jeopardy!" studio, the contestants played a mock game, then waited for their names to be called.

“I was okay until they called my name in the first group,” Sullivan said. “Then I got really nervous.”

Once she got on set, Sullivan said everything went by really fast and felt like an “out-of-body experience.”

“I did well up until Double Jeopardy!. Then my inner idiot took the wheel,” Sullivan said, laughing.

Sullivan said although she didn’t win, being on the show was an interesting experience. And interestingly enough, another Butte woman has shared in the experience with her. According to Sullivan, one of her speech and debate teammates, Abra Belke, was also a contestant on "Jeopardy!" in 2009.

Sullivan said she reached out to Belke before the show to see if she had any studying or strategy tips.

Belke had tried to get on "Jeopardy!" since she was a teenager, she said. When she finally got her chance nearly a decade ago, she also placed second and took home $2,000.

“It was incredibly fun,” Belke said. “When it’s over, it’s sad because all you want to do is play again and again, but if you don’t win, you can never go on the show again.”

But that hasn’t stopped Belke from competing on other game shows. In 2011, she was a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". In 2013, she played on "The Million Second Quiz". She’s also been in contestant pools for other game shows and recently won $50,000 through an online trivia game app called "Givling," which aims to help people “play off” their student loans, Belke said.

So, how did two Butte women make it on the same national TV game show? Belke believes her Butte roots helped set her apart from other potential contestants, and probably helped Sullivan, too.

The first time Belke had an in-person audition for "Jeopardy!", she said she was from Washington D.C., where she lived at the time. The second time, she said she was from Butte and ended up as a contestant on the show a few months later.

“Being from a place and a state that not a lot of people are from definitely helped. Anything that sets you a part helps,” Belke said.

She also said the fact that the two women both learned how to energetically communicate with people through speech and debate probably helped them get on the game show.

“The secret sauce for being on game shows is you have to be memorable,” Belke said. “You have to have fun stories and energy. It’s not just about being smart, you have to be likable and good on TV.”