“My husband and I were always “Jeopardy” fans,” Kathy Widmayer said. She appeared on the show in 2001 and came in second.
David Widmayer followed in his parent’s footsteps with two appearances on “Jeopardy.” Like his parents, he came in second.
Kathy Widmayer describes her brain as an upstairs attic.
“My brain just retains a lot,” she explained. “I can’t always retrieve it in the exact moment, but it’s like rummaging through the attic … It’s there somewhere.”
It was the same for her late husband Hank, and is now for their son David. And with all that retained knowledge, it’s not surprising the family shares a love for “Jeopardy.” Not only did the three watch it every weeknight from their former home in Moorestown, they have all been contestants.
“My husband and I were always ‘Jeopardy’ fans,” noted Kathy, who now lives in Delran. “We tried various times to get on the show. Hank auditioned and eventually got called out to Los Angeles.”
At the time, interested contestants had to submit a postcard, then be called in for an audition. It was 1992.
“Hank did really well,” Kathy recalled. “He came in second that day.”
For the win, Hank won a five-day trip to Rio Suites in Las Vegas. Fast forward to 2001 and Kathy – just like her husband – got the opportunity to audition for the show, in Pittsburgh.
“Hank’s parents were living in Lancaster County at the time, so I thought, ‘Allright, if they called, maybe we’ll make a two-day thing of it,'” Kathy recounted.
And that’s what they did.
“They break you up into groups of, say, about 40 to 50,” Kathy pointed out. “They hand out answer sheets for 50 questions and play a tape of (late host) Alex Trebek reading the questions, and you would write down the answer.”
When she came out of the audition, Hank asked how she did.
“I’m in,” Kathy replied.
“I was really bad with popular or current music,” she acknowledged. “(At the time), I was a traveling consultant for an IT company and one of my clients that year was Warner Bros. Records (now Warner Records Inc.).”
Kathy happened to be at Warner headquarters on Grammy night and got invited to a party for employees.
“Warner Bros. was winning all kinds of awards,” she remembered. “One of the artists that won that year was Seal, for ‘Kiss for a Rose.'”
That was the only popular music question in the audition. Kathy came in second and won a trip to Ireland.
“Alex Trebek was as congenial, nice, polite and as friendly as you saw on camera,” she said, adding the host came out between the shows and talked with each contestant.
“Jeopardy” films five shows a day, Kathy learned. And the key is the buzzer.
“It’s as much what you know as getting the time on that buzzer down,” she said.
In the rules, once a person is a contestant on the show, he or she can’t be a contestant again until the host changes, Kathy noted, unless the show calls a contestant back for a tournament.
Since his parents were on the show, David, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, and is a trivia host and chemist, tried to get called for an audition over the years. Today’s auditions are online. He finally got his chance on April 21, 2025, with current host Ken Jennings.
Kathy traveled to Los Angeles for the taping. Hank, a theater technician, passed away in 2024 before he could see his son play.
“It breaks my heart,” Kathy revealed.
And although she had her own success, watching her son play was “pins and needles.”
And like his parents, David came in second. He missed the last question, about the name of a museum on Cromwell Road named for Victoria and her cousin. The answer was the Victoria and Albert Museum.
“I was sure Dave got it,” Kathy said, “thinking we had taken him to London and visited the museums.”
When David missed the question, Kathy thought back and realized of all the museums they visited, that one was missed. In November, David got called back for a Second Chance tournament. With a planned trip to Italy already booked, a decision had to be made.
He flew through 13 hours and nine time zones to get to the taping. And just like last April, he came in second, missing the last question that asked what movie in 1999 combines two holidays. The answer was “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
“He put together Halloween and Christmas, but before he could change it, time was up,” Kathy said, thinking he was just jetlagged and tired. “I think his brain was fried, especially with what had happened 48 hours prior … He still did very well.”
Today each contestant goes home with a set amount of prize winnings. At Kathy’s home, a photo of her time on the show with Alex Trebek sits on a coffee table.
“Even losing, it was a lot of fun,” she commented. “I give a lot of credit to how ‘Jeopardy’ is managed and produced. They are there to make it fun for everybody who competes. They want you to come away with a good experience whatever your outcome is.
“And I think they do a very, very good job of that.”
