Sage Hill teacher Aileen Hawkins was the champion on Saturday's episode of Jeopardy, winning $2,399. She will return to the show on Feb. 25 to defend her title, after the Teen Tournament which airs on Jeopardy for the next two weeks.
To prepare for her appearance on Jeopardy, Hawkins did some basic review of common categories on the show.
"I found a Web site archive of all the games and did a few practice questions," she said. "I did sort of a crash course review on U.S. presidents, British Royalty – stuff I haven't seen since I was in high school. My feeling was if my students and family were going to see this, I didn't want to look like a colossal idiot."
Hawkins teaches a section on 11th grade English at Sage Hill. The Dana Point resident said her knowledge of American literature and history helped her on the show.
"I think I was reasonably prepared, but categories like military aircraft, who studies that?" she said. "There's stuff that tends to show up a lot, if you watch the show regularly. There's stuff you cannot prepare for too. Is it stuck there somewhere in your brain or isn't it?"
One of her favorite parts of the Jeopardy experience was getting her makeup done for television.
"The makeup artists were awesome," Hawkins said. "I felt so pretty going on to the set, I didn't really care what happened after that. It was better than the makeup I had for my wedding."
