By CONNIE LEINBACH

By CONNIE LEINBACH

Ocracoke Island was ecstatic Thursday night, May 5, as local high school English teacher Charles Temple won in the first round of “Jeopardy!” Teachers Tournament.

The capacity crowd at Gaffer’s Sports Pub, where Temple, many of his students, colleagues and local residents, watched the game erupted in cheers.

Temple, smiling broadly, stood up, bowed and toasted the crowd as they continued to cheer, hug and high-five the teacher who put the national spotlight on Ocracoke Island.

Temple, 38, goes on to play in the semi-finals next week. He will appear on the show that will be aired at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 11. The winners of the shows on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will compete in the final competition on Thursday and Friday, May 12 and 13.

The winner will receive $100,000 and a guaranteed spot in the “Jeopardy!” Tournament of Champions, airing later this year. The second-place winner will earn a minimum of $50,000 and third place $25,000. Semi-finalists receive $10,000, and contestants eliminated in the first round receive $5,000. In addition, each teacher will receive a Classroom “Jeopardy!” unit for his or her school.

The Teachers Tournament was taped on March 28 and 29.

Temple, who is sworn to secrecy about his fate, would not reveal if he won the next round.

He won $20,600 on Thursday night. The other two contestants, Grafton Brown of Chicago and Sally Umbach of Cincinnati, Ohio, had final scores of $5,800 and $7,100, respectively.

“Tonight we celebrate brains,” noted Ocracoke resident Tom Pahl.

“You’re my hero, Charles,” another young man said congratulating Temple.

“I’m proud of him,” said one of his students, Adam Carter, a ninth grader.

“I still can’t believe it,” gushed Virginia Downes, a junior. “We’re probably never going to meet anyone else who’s been on ‘Jeopardy!’”

Temple graciously talked to all who wanted to congratulate him, saying that he’s not the celebrity type.

As the game began, Temple seemed to hold back and even missed a question, putting him into the negative range at -$400 while Umbach, the leader, had a few thousand dollars. Temple’s was the lowest score by the time the first commercial break came around.

“When I saw that, I told myself, ‘You can stay there or you can hunker down and get going,’ ” Temple explained. He said he wasn’t nervous but a little aggravated at the beginning by the workings of his game buzzer.

Then he started nailing the answers in the “Rome” question category and kept going, taking the lead and holding on to it until the end amid loud cheers with every correct answer.

“Once I got into the rhythm, I knew I had it,” Temple said.

History is his strong suit, he said in a pre-game interview. He also reads quite a bit, sometimes has four books going at once, and loves puzzles.

The Final Jeopardy question about world leaders—“After winning the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, his country ceased to exist”–stumped him, but since he had only bet $2,200, off his then total of $22,800, he won handily.

(The answer: Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.)

An avid “Jeopardy!” fan since he was a child, Temple said being on the game has been a life-long dream.

And the island has been with him riding that crest.

“It’s been fun to see how the community has enjoyed this,” he said. “The whole region is excited.”

His students and colleagues had been trying to trick him into revealing if he had won tonight’s event.

“Everyone’s been hounding him about how he did,” said Denny Widener, who works maintenance at the school. “He’s very smart and quick witted. So he had some good come-backs.”

“The kids tried but they realized they were vastly over matched,” Temple said with his ever-present grin.

A “Jeopardy!” Clue Team member, Kelly Miyahara, was also in the crowd and said she will be at the Ocracoke School Friday morning to present the school with the classroom computer game.

The three-person Clue Crew travels the world making videos of some of the questions, giving the show a visual element. They also present the classroom games to the various schools.

By IRENE NOLAN

By IRENE NOLAN

Charles Temple, who teaches high school English at Ocracoke School, is competing in the first ever “Jeopardy!” Teachers Tournament.

His first appearance as a contestant will be on Thursday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. on local ABC television stations.

“Jeopardy” has put a national spotlight on the importance and impact of educators by hosting its first-ever Teachers Tournament. According to the show’s publicists, this is the first new competition to be introduced on the quiz show since the debut of Kids Week in 1999.

“Educators play such an important role in guiding and inspiring our young people to reach their full potential,” said “Jeopardy!” Executive Producer Harry Friedman. “We thought it was time to honor teachers with their own tournament.”

Temple was one of 15 teachers chosen to compete. According to a media release, the contestants represent the “nation’s brightest K-12 teachers.”

The tournament started on Monday, May 2, and runs through Friday, May 13.

This week’s shows on Monday through Friday will feature the 15 teachers in the first round of competition. The winner of each day’s contest is automatically a semi-finalist. In addition, four “wildcard” semifinalists, the highest scorers from the four days who were not winners, will also go into next week’s semi-finals.

The semi-final round will be broadcast Monday through Wednesday of next week. The winners of those shows will compete in the final competition on Thursday and Friday, May 12 and 13.

The winner will receive $100,000 and a guaranteed spot in the “Jeopardy!” Tournament of Champions airing later this year. The second place winner will earn a minimum of $50,000 and third place $25,000. Semi-finalists receive $10,000, and contestants eliminated in the first round receive $5,000. In addition, each teacher will receive a Classroom “Jeopardy!” unit for his or her school.

Temple, 38, who has taught at Ocracoke School for eight years, knows whether he will appear again after tomorrow night, but he can’t say a word until after the shows are broadcast. That has been tough, he said.

The Teachers Tournament was taped on March 28 and 29.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Temple, adding that it has been very strange to not be able to talk to anyone about how far he got in the contest.

Temple had taken the online quiz for aspiring “Jeopardy!” contestants and was invited for a personal interview.

Then he waited to hear from the show’s producers. In February, when he had just about given up, he got a call saying that he was being considered for the Teachers Tournament. He got the word in March that he was one of 15 teachers chosen.

Tomorrow evening, Temple, his family, and other Ocracokers will gather at Gaffer’s Sports Pub to watch the show on big-screen TVs and root for their guy.

Temple will compete against Grafton Brown of Corliss High School in Chicago, Ill., and Sally Umbach of Newport Independent Schools in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The other competitors include Catherine Carson, St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School in Washington, D.C.; Kathy Casavant, Oxford High School in Oxford, Mass.; Dan Crosby, Maimonides Academy in Santa Monica, Calif.; Larry DeMoss, Edgewood High School in Ellettsville, Ind.; Judd Hess, Godinez Fundamental High School in Huntington Beach, Calif.; Lori Kissell , Liberty High School in Fredericksburg, Va.; Caitlin Millat, Achievement First Apollo Elementary School in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Matt Polazzo, Stuyvesant High School in Brooklyn, N.Y.; Elisabeth Raab, High School of the Future in Philadelphia, Pa.; Viki Radden , South High School in Bakersfield, Calif.; John Shoe, Logan School for Creative Learning in Lakewood, Colo., and Charley Tinkham, Burlingame Intermediate School in San Bruno, Calif.

“Some of the best ‘Jeopardy!’ contestants are students, teachers and lawyers. We already have several tournaments for students, but we don’t have anything for teachers,” said “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek.

“As for lawyers, well, we’ll negotiate that later,” he added jokingly.

“It’s been fun watching how exciting this has been for the community,” Temple said. “But, personally, I will be glad when it’s over.”

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