A half-hour stint on “Wheel of Fortune” netted Julie Bennett nearly as much as she makes in a year as a government teacher at Edward Little High School.

And when the show aired Friday night – weeks after the actual win – she could finally share her joy.

“It’s such a relief. Oh gosh!” she said minutes after the show ended, while about 70 family members, friends and co-workers celebrated around her at Mulligan’s Indoor Golf and Pub in Lewiston. “Everyone was cheering. Every time I got something right, everyone was going nuts.”

Bennett’s final tally: $29,550 in cash and prizes, including a trip to London.

She won the night, besting the second-place winner, a police officer from Arizona, by more than $10,000. Bennett solved three puzzles, but it was her luck at the wheel that was most startling. Her spins routinely skirted by “lose a turn” and “bankrupt” to settle on, among other things, a free spin, a wild card and a $10,000 bonus.

“I was thinking, ‘What is going on? This is so bizarre,'” she said.

Her streak of luck impressed even longtime host Pat Sajak.

“You’re stripping the wheel clean,” he quipped at one point.

Bennett, 25, tried out for the show when the “Wheelmobile” came to the Yarmouth Clam Festival in July. A month later, she got an invite to the second round of auditions.

Bennett was ultimately chosen for the game show, and she received two-week notice that she’d be taping on Nov. 15. She had days to pull together a whirlwind vacation to California, since contestants are responsible for getting themselves to the studio. Bennett’s boyfriend, Craig Latuscha, also a government teacher at EL, went with her.

On taping day, she had to sign a thick contract that, in part, swore her to secrecy about her episode’s outcome until it aired. Then she and her competition – Heather, a bubbly substitute teacher from California, and Phil, the Arizona police officer – played the game.

“It was so much harder than at home,” she said. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was surprised I didn’t.”

The stress was worth it.

Bennett didn’t get the first puzzle. Or the second. But she solved the third, winning her a whopping $21,150 in cash and prizes.

“They’re cheering in Maine right now, that’s for sure,” Sajak said.

And he was right. At Mulligan’s on Friday, Bennett’s friends, family and co-workers erupted with cheers and shouts of joy.

By the time the show ended, Bennett had solved two other puzzles, adding thousands to her total. As the contestant with the most money, she made it to the bonus round.

The puzzle: a three-word, 13-letter phrase. Only seven letters came up.

For 10 seconds, Bennett struggled. “High and tights. . . high and flights. . . high and. . . .”

The buzzer sounded. The answer: “High and mighty.” Bennett didn’t solve the puzzle, didn’t win the $40,000 prize.

“I was like, ‘I’m so stupid. Why didn’t I get that?'” she said Friday. “Ten seconds went by like two seconds.”

To her chagrin, friends, family and co-workers shouted out the answer – within the time limit – as they watched at Mulligan’s.

But no one, least of all Bennett, mourned the loss of the last puzzle. She’d won nearly $19,000 in cash, $2,500 on a debit card and a European vacation worth more than $8,000.

After weeks of keeping quiet, avoiding pointed questions and leading conversations, Bennett could finally celebrate in public.

“My parents are just floored,” she said.

Bennett isn’t certain yet what she’ll do with the prize money, though she’s thinking of paying off a car she recently bought and sticking the rest in the bank, possibly to go toward a house. She and her boyfriend plan to take the European vacation next summer.

Though on Friday, Bennett had more immediate plans. With all the shouting and cheering from the crowd around her, she didn’t hear a lot of the show.

“I have to go and watch it again,” she said.