Librarian’s moment in ‘Jeopardy’ spotlight ends
A Chicago Ridge librarian’s moment in the spotlight faded Thursday, losing on “Jeopardy” a day after he unseated long-standing champion Amy Schneider.
Rhone Talsma, a multimedia librarian, came in 3rd place, winning $1,000 in the show aired Thursday, with Carrie Cadwallader, a business intelligence manager from Aurora, Colorado, emerging as the new champion, according to the show.
Talsma, who lives in Chicago’s McKinley Park neighborhood, had ended Schneider’s historic 40-game winning streak Wednesday, earning $29,600 to Schneider’s second-place tally of $19,600.
Heading into Final Jeopardy, Schneider led with a score of $27,600, while Talsma had $17,600. The clue was “the only nation in the world whose name in English ends in an H, it’s also one of the 10 most populous.” The correct response: “What is Bangladesh?”
Only record holder Ken Jennings, who now hosts the show, has had more consecutive wins than Schneider, with his 74 wins in 2004. Her total winnings are $1,382,800, and she will return for the Tournament of Champions this fall.
Thursday’s show opened with Jennings showing a montage of Talsma’s facial expressions from the moment he realized he had become the champion.
Talsma credited his work as a reference librarian with his success.
“Sitting at the desk for eight hours a day, I’m almost guaranteed to learn something new thanks to a question from one of our patrons,” Talsma told the Tribune Wednesday. “Librarians have a reputation for being strong ‘Jeopardy!’ contestants because we are generalists by nature, and while I don’t have deep expertise in many areas, I do know a little bit about a lot of subjects, which lends itself well to the format and clues featured on ‘Jeopardy!’ ”
The Chicago Ridge Library held a watch party for Wednesday’s show.