A 10-year-old Farmington girl
awaits word on her ‘Jeopardy!’ chances.
FARMINGTON – Reading all those almanacs paid off.
Ten-year-old Amanda Hall learned in May she was one of 60 children vying to become a finalist to appear during Kids Week on “Jeopardy!” in the New England region.
On Sunday she took a 30-question written test with the other 10- to 12-year-olds in Providence, R.I., trying out for the TV game show. The contestants had eight seconds to answer each question. Once she got past the first question, she relaxed.
The question: Who was the headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?
“I knew the answer right off the bat, so I was not at all worried about the rest,” Amanda said.
The answer: Dumbledore.
Only Mainer
She is the youngest of the group and the only one from Maine among the 11 regional finalists asked to stay for an interview and to audition for one of two weeklong kids’ segments. She said she jumped up and down when her name was the first one called.
There will be 99 contestants around the country hoping to make the final cut. Of the finalists 30 kids plus two alternates will be chosen.
“The way I figure it, I have a one in three chance to get on,” Amanda said. “So now I’m waiting for the day when the certified FedEx package arrives.”
Amanda, the daughter of Lisa Ellrich of Farmington and Rodney Hall of East Dixfield, has watched “Jeopardy!” for years.
“I didn’t start to understand it until I was 5,” the Cascade Brook sixth-grader said. “One night, during Kids Week shows last year, my grandfather and I were watching the show. I was saying a lot of the right answers before the other kids who were actually on the show.”
The next night, she and “Pop-pop” Jack Ellrich kept track of how much money she would have won if she was on the show: $19,400 without wagering anything on the daily double or Final Jeopardy, she said.
Her grandfather suggested she find out how to get on the show. She went on the Internet and signed up and was randomly selected.
Hall and her mother didn’t think much of it until a call came in and asked if they could be in Rhode Island last weekend. “We were very surprised,” Hall said. “I started making up note cards and reading as many almanacs as I could.”
She’s still fine-tuning. “I think the hardest question was about the capital of Egypt,” she said. “I didn’t know what it was, but I sort of did. I wrote ‘Tyro,’ but it was Cairo.”
If the FedEx package doesn’t appear in July, she’ll have to wait till November, when contestants for the second week will be chosen.
If it doesn’t appear in November, her last chance, she won’t be disappointed, she said.
“I’m not going to stress out over it,” Amanda said. “I did the best I did, and it seemed they know what they’re doing and would pick kids who were best for the show. If I don’t get picked, then I know that I’m not what they need.”
But just in case, she set aside the same outfit and all of her lucky charms – a shamrock pin from teacher Julia Hennessy, a charm bracelet, a bracelet full of glass beads and her personally designed red tourmaline ring – to wear again.
“I don’t know which part was lucky. I’m not going to take any chances,” Amanda said.
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