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The “Jeopardy!” episode broadcast March 13 featured two Berks County high school graduates among the three contestants vying to win money by answering a barrage of brain-teasing trivia questions.
James Corson, 39, who graduated in 2004 from Holy Name High School in Reading, and Elizabeth Engelhardt, 42, Class of 2001 at Holy Name, had not met before entering the Jeopardy green room prior to the recording of their episode on Jan. 27.
“I overheard her saying she grew up in Reading and so I asked her a little about that and she said, ‘Are you familiar with Reading? I went to Holy Name,’ and I’m like ‘What?’” Corson said. “We were at Holy Name at the same time. She was a senior when I was a freshman.”
Their paths never really crossed
Corson grew up in the Fleetwood area, a son of Donna Corson and the late James Corson. He went to Penn State University’s main campus in Centre County for his bachelor’s degree and then moved out of Berks to attend graduate school at Texas A&M University.
Since 2010 Corson has lived in Frederick, Md. He is a nuclear engineer with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Engelhardt grew up in Cumru Township, a daughter of Brian and Suzanne Engelhardt. She graduated from Swathmore College in Delaware County and went to Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., for grad school.
She teaches Greek and Latin at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. Engelhardt moved to Concord in 2016. She and her husband, David Camden, have two sons: Benjamin, 9, and Henry, 2.
Corson amassed a three-episode total of $73,800 in winnings. He came in second place in Thursday’s show.
He attributes his love of trivia to his parents.
“Growing up, we would watch ‘Jeopardy!’ a lot and play ‘Trivial Pursuit’ or other trivia board games,” Corson said. I’ve just always been interested in learning new stuff. My wife is also really into trivia as well, so it has just been easy to keep that passion going.”
He and his wife, Holly, frequent pub trivia nights in their hometown as do Engelhardt and her husband.
Engelhardt said her parents were influential in her catching the trivia bug, with her father being a Berks and baseball historian.
“So, I think that a lot of it was growing up in Berks County before the internet was a big thing and we were all using dial-up modems that loaded very slowly and you had to constantly fight with members of your family about who wanted to use the phone lines,” Engelhardt said.
“I owe the teachers at LaSalle Academy in Shillington a significant amount of gratitude for 1, making lots and lots of really interesting books and resources available for reading about all kinds of random things. And 2, not yelling at me too much when they caught me paging through the encyclopedia of music or something when I should have been focusing on my social studies textbook.”
“I’m not sure why my brain works the way it does, but random facts just seem to stick in there,” Engelhardt said
Neither contestant thought any one particular category was difficult.
“There are two (questions) that will haunt me, because I got them wrong, Engelhardt said. “One was the Final Jeopardy. ‘This game inaugurated a craze that scandalized the puritanical and drove chiropractors wild with delight.’ “
“You’re up there, the music is playing, you are under time pressure, so in that short period of time I came up with hula hoop. Which my husband points out is more of a toy, but the answer was Twister.”
Another answer that she incorrectly responded was “the composer who is best known for his opera ‘Pagliacci’ and the answer was this guy Leoncavallo, but I missed a syllable and said Leoncavo. That missed syllable cost me $2,000.”
Both contestants were impressed with their competition.
“So I went on TV, and I was there to make friends I suppose,” Engelhardt said.
And, more importantly, she will be able to play against high-achieving trivia masters on Learnedleague.com.
““I have trying to get into that for years,” Engelhardt said. “You need somebody who is in the league to give you an invite and I did not know anyone who was a current Learnedleague player, but now thanks to ‘Jeopardy,’ James has given me an invite to the Learnedleague.”
“Getting into that 10ish years ago is what really started me into getting better at trivia and more serious about it,” Corson said.
Engelhardt’s key to preparing for her “Jeopardy!” appearance was to frequently visit J-Archive.com. The people who run the site catalogue every question and answer for each episode.
Both trivia buffs were glad their time on the show was over. Corson said it was very stressful.
“Now I get to go back to watching ‘Jeopardy’ like a normal person — I don’t know the outcome in advance and don’t have anything that I am contractually obligated to conceal,” Engelhardt said.
By the way, Jack Goldfisher finished in first place, Corson was second and Engelhardt was third, taking home $2,000.
