Hannah Norem is a sophomore at Augustana University. She made it into the semi-final round of College Jeopardy and is taking home a $10,000 prize.
“I thought, you know it’s a big deal being on Jeopardy. 12,000 people tried out and only 15 people made it,” says Norem.
During her first round of jeopardy Norem experienced a three-way tie. Then in her second round she barely fell short of making it into the finals.
“And they also don’t talk about how the buzzer can make or break your game because I knew a bunch of the questions, but I got beat about on a bunch of the questions by the two other people I was playing against. So you’re yelling at the TV at home whatever the right answer is, but it’s harder when you’re actually playing to buzz in,” says Norem.
Norem isn’t the only student in the state experiencing success on national TV. Thirteen-year-old Sabrina Swee is from Beresford. She competed and won on the Food Network show Chopped Junior.
“I was really nervous and just excited at the same time, but mostly nervous. Right before you walk onto the set, they say ‘3-2-1 go’ and then I was like ‘oh my gosh…” says Swee
Swee says contestants are given a basket filled with ingredients. They then they have to make a three course meal.
“The first recipe that popped into my mind was a salad. But then I actually thought about doing a taco for the first round, but that wasn’t my initial idea so I decided to stick with what I thought at first,” says Swee.
Swee used ingredients like squid, cactus, corn, and pineapple to craft her winning meal and take first place.