LOCAL AURORA TEACHER WAS A WHIZ ON “JEOPARDY”

High school music teacher Kyle Jones fulfilled a lifelong dream when he competed on “Jeopardy.” He put together a sevenday winning streak before losing on Friday’s episode, returning home with $145,403.

Aurora high school music teacher Kyle Jones is just like a lot of educators. He deals with rowdy students and misbehavior. He tries to inspire and teach fundamental skills.

Oh, and he’s also a “Jeopardy” genius.

Jones won seven days in a row on the legendary game show before finally falling in Friday’s episode. Prior to that secondplace finish, Jones had taken the country by storm, racking up $145,403 in cold, hard cash.

The shows were filmed over the summer, during Jones’ vacation, but are just now airing on TV.

For Jones, just getting on the show is a lifelong dream — for him and his mother.

“I’ve been watching “Jeopardy” basically my whole life,” Jones said. “My mom has been a fan for all 35 years of the show, and we watched it every day at home.”

Jones took his passion for trivia to high school, competing in the Knowledge Bowl. Plus, all those episodes of “Jeopardy” probably didn’t hurt either.

“For whatever reason, I’ve always been able to recall seemingly unrelated facts,” Jones says. “Pretty much every day of my life trivia has been in my mind.”

His best category? Classical music composers — naturally.

As luck would have it, that knowledge helped him win money. During his epic run, one of the categories was Leonard Bernstein. Jones just so happened to have written his thesis on Leonard Bernstein.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Because multiple episodes are filmed in one day, Jones said it was hard to keep track of just how well he was doing. The answer: Pretty darn well.

And he has stats to back it up. That’s right, they keep stats: 155 correct answers to just 14 incorrect during his first seven shows. A perfect 9for9 on rebound attempts (those are Nikola Jokic numbers right there). He was also 9for12 on Daily Doubles and a cool 5for7 in Final Jeopardy.

“It’s surreal,” Jones said of his streak. “I was overjoyed just to even get on the show in the first place. I never considered the possibility of this kind of money.”

Jones’ students, as you might imagine, have been quite excited by their teacher’s new celebrity.

“My students always tell me, ‘We saw you on TV!’ ” he said. “And then they usually follow that up with: ‘So what are you going to get us?’ ”

Jones says he has a gift in mind for them, but he’s not ready to reveal his surprise quite yet.

For himself? Jones says he’s going to treat himself to upgraded sound equipment and software that he’s wanted for a long time — new toys to help him as a composer, which he does in addition to his teaching.

Most important, this whole experience gave Jones a new cover photo on Facebook — beaming in a gray vest, turquoise dress shirt with Alex Trebek.