February 18, 2005

Purdue pair to appear on 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University students Kristin Pearl and Heather Redden will appear next week on the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" television show as part of the game show’s special College Week series.

The show broadcasts at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday on ABC. Pearl is scheduled to appear on the Monday (Feb. 21) episode, and Redden is scheduled to appear on the Feb. 25 episode.

Episodes of the College Week series originally were taped Jan. 12 at the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – Play It!" attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

"The experience was really great," said Pearl, a junior organizational leadership and supervision major from West Lafayette. "Aside from just being on the show, which was exciting, what was really great was meeting all the other students who were there for the show. I got to know what college life was like in other areas of the country."

Pearl will be the first student contestant in the "hot seat" when the College Week broadcasts begin Monday. Redden, a freshman speech pathology and psychology major from Greenfield, Ind., is scheduled to be the last contestant on the Feb. 25 College Week finale.

"I’m not exactly a trivia expert, and I don’t have much time to watch the show on a regular basis, so I don’t know how I got on," Redden said. "Believe it or not, I wasn’t nervous at all."

Both Pearl and Redden plan to reserve a portion of their "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" winnings, which the show requires to remain undisclosed until after broadcast, for future investments.

Redden plans to use whatever she earns on the show to pay for graduate school, if possible, and perhaps to buy a new car. Pearl plans to finance a trip to Europe with friends and also hopes to give some money to charity.

"We are not allowed to say anything about how we did, which has been really difficult," Pearl said. "Lots of people have been asking me to tell just them, and saying to me that they wouldn’t say anything to anyone else. If I did that, everyone would know."

Pearl and Redden first tried out to be contestants on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in October, when the show held regional auditions at Purdue for the College Week shows.

Purdue was alone among participating schools to have two representatives is this year’s College Week series, which featured a total of eight student contestants from seven schools. The other schools represented were the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Wake Forest University, Arizona State University, the University of Colorado, Hofstra University and Duke University.

"Anyone who has watched 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' knows that a certain degree of intelligence and knowledge is required simply to get onto the show," said Heather Owen, Purdue Memorial Union program director. "It says a good deal about the quality of education at Purdue that two of our students were able to qualify as competitors."

"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" has conducted College Week events twice in the past, with student competitors winning nearly $600,000 total during those episodes.

Writer: Aaron Martin, (765) 496-3133, martinac@purdue.edu

Sources: Heather Owen, (765) 494-8909, owenh@purdue.edu

Heather Redden: (765) 495-1290, hredden@purdue.edu

Kristin Pearl: (765) 743-6269, kpearl@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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