BY JESSICA BROWN
Do you remember when you were little and the teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? (Well, they still do, even though you don’t get coloring pages as your assignments or get to play dress-up as your future career, and the growing up part isn’t too far away now.) Some kids wanted to be a professional sports player, a firefighter, a veterinarian, or a movie star. But this year, Spanish teacher Diana Selwyn got to live out the childhood dream of many – she got to be on television. In April, Selwyn appeared as a contestant on the famous game show Wheel of Fortune.
Selwyn’s adventure started with an invitational event in December, which was an open call for tryouts for the show. She put her name in a drawing and they happened to pull her name out.
“My name happened to get drawn and I went up to the stage,” Selwyn said. “They take a picture of you, and then they have you solve one puzzle in a group of five people.” Then she went on to do auditions against other people that were auditioning as well.
After a while she got hear words she had always wanted to hear: “You’re going to be on Wheel of Fortune!”
The filming was out of town which might have caused a problem for the teacher’s schedule, but luckily the filming was during spring break, which resolved the conflict.
Those who have watched Wheel of Fortune know that each episode is only half an hour, including all the commercials. Each filming was only twenty minutes long, and Selwyn was in the third group to film after taking breaks between each filming. They had to draw to decide where to stand and to see which show they would be in. “It was really awesome," Selwyn said. "It was probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done. I’ve always wanted to do it since I was a kid. I love that show, and it was always my dream to get on there."
And when it was time to play, she didn’t forget to nod to her students: when she introduced herself on the show, she said “Go T-Birds!” “It was a little weird, it was weird because I knew what was going to happen, but the way that they present it on TV is a little bit different. Like I feel like I looked less nervous then I felt on TV,” Selwyn said.
Although Selwyn didn’t make it to the bonus round, she still earned a bit of money on the show. “Like for about a week or two after it happened I was kind of sad because I wanted to do better," Selwyn said. "But when it got closer to the show coming on, I was just excited that I had made it."
Do you remember when you were little and the teacher asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? (Well, they still do, even though you don’t get coloring pages as your assignments or get to play dress-up as your future career, and the growing up part isn’t too far away now.) Some kids wanted to be a professional sports player, a firefighter, a veterinarian, or a movie star. But this year, Spanish teacher Diana Selwyn got to live out the childhood dream of many – she got to be on television. In April, Selwyn appeared as a contestant on the famous game show Wheel of Fortune.
Selwyn’s adventure started with an invitational event in December, which was an open call for tryouts for the show. She put her name in a drawing and they happened to pull her name out.
“My name happened to get drawn and I went up to the stage,” Selwyn said. “They take a picture of you, and then they have you solve one puzzle in a group of five people.” Then she went on to do auditions against other people that were auditioning as well.
After a while she got hear words she had always wanted to hear: “You’re going to be on Wheel of Fortune!”
The filming was out of town which might have caused a problem for the teacher’s schedule, but luckily the filming was during spring break, which resolved the conflict.
Those who have watched Wheel of Fortune know that each episode is only half an hour, including all the commercials. Each filming was only twenty minutes long, and Selwyn was in the third group to film after taking breaks between each filming. They had to draw to decide where to stand and to see which show they would be in. “It was really awesome," Selwyn said. "It was probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done. I’ve always wanted to do it since I was a kid. I love that show, and it was always my dream to get on there."
And when it was time to play, she didn’t forget to nod to her students: when she introduced herself on the show, she said “Go T-Birds!” “It was a little weird, it was weird because I knew what was going to happen, but the way that they present it on TV is a little bit different. Like I feel like I looked less nervous then I felt on TV,” Selwyn said.
Although Selwyn didn’t make it to the bonus round, she still earned a bit of money on the show. “Like for about a week or two after it happened I was kind of sad because I wanted to do better," Selwyn said. "But when it got closer to the show coming on, I was just excited that I had made it."