The 35-year-old West Chester Twp. resident got to live that dream when he became a contestant on Wednesday’s airing of the popular game show.
He also won $24,801 on Wednesday’s airing of ‘Jeopardy!’ beating out one-day champion Nick Durazo, a compliance engineer from California, and Susan Shikany, a school media specialist from North Carolina.
At the end of Double Jeopardy, Revy had earned $15,600, while his opponents had $12,400 and $11,600. He wagered $9,201 before receiving the Final Jeopardy answer: “She beat out newcomers like Bieber & Gaga to top Forbes’ list of the highest-paid people in music for 2013.”
The question: “Who is Madonna?”
At the start of the show, ‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek made small talk with the show’s contestants. Getting to Revy, a U.S. Air Force space systems analyst at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Trebek praised his place of employment.
“I visited the air base and the museum there, which is very impressive,” Trebek said.
Revy, who grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, earned degrees from Ohio State University and the University of Dayton.
Asking what kind of work Revy does, Trebek got less information than he anticipated.
“I’m an aerospace engineer,” Revy said. “There’s not a whole lot I can say about my job. Not even my wife knows, but let’s just say I’m an analyst, a government analyst, and let’s just leave it at that.”
After a brief silence, Trebek replied with a good-natured “Boo, hiss.”
Revy, a Lakewood, Ohio native, earned degrees from Ohio State University and the University of Dayton. He has worked since March 2004 as a U.S. Air Force space systems analyst at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.
He said he applied multiple times via an online test but an October 2012 attempt was the one that led to a call to participate in a live audition in downtown Cincinnati in December 2012.
After six months, Revy wrote off any chance of being a contestant, but that all changed last November when he noticed a voice mail from a number in Culver City, Calif., where the show is filmed.
“I think I knew instantly it was ‘Jeopardy!’ calling me,” he said. “I was pretty taken aback. I guess shock is the word for it.”
Revy, who traveled to California with his wife, Kelly, in December, said being on the set was a “surreal” experience.
“Leading up to the moment I was on the stage was pretty nerve wracking,” he said. “You have to get there pretty early in the morning and you have to sit through two hours of signing paperwork and them telling you about the show, pointers, and all kinds of stuff they’re trying to give information on.”
After going up on stage to answer some mock questions, Revy took a seat with other contestants waiting their turn in the audience for their name to be called during the five-shows-a-day taping schedule.
Once he was picked to come up on the stage to be part of an actual show, most of his nervousness faded away.
“You don’t notice the audience,” Revy said. “You’re kind of in the zone, at least that’s what it was like for me. You kind of were locked into the questions and listening to Alex Trebek.”
In advance of the show, Revy offered few hints as to its outcome but said the categories often are “luck of the draw.”
“That helps that there’s categories you’re really good at,” he said. “Let’s just say there were a few I really nailed and there’s a few others I wasn’t so good on.”
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