WL's Adriana Harmeyer punches ticket to ‘Jeopardy’ Tournament of Champions finals
The Purdue archivist was first of three to advance with win Tuesday. Plus, Senate OK’s water pipeline bill. Purdue mum as bill that would wipe out use of student IDs at polling places advances
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First up … Correction: A Feb. 4 edition incorrectly identified Justin Moffett, founder of Old Town Design Group, in an account of a rezoning request for the Provenance development that went before the West Lafayette City Council Monday. The story has been updated here: “After initial blowback, West Lafayette signs off on changes in Provenance subdivision in Purdue’s Discovery Park District.”
SEE YOU IN THE ‘JEOPARDY’ TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS FINALS, ADRIANA HARMEYER
Adriana Harmeyer, a 15-game winner during the 2024 season of “Jeopardy,” advanced to the show’s Tournament of Champions finals Tuesday, when the Purdue archivist from West Lafayette racked up a win in the first of the tournament’s three semi-finals.
Harmeyer will play again Friday in a finals format that could run anywhere from three to seven nights – or until one of the three contestants wins three times.
Harmeyer, among “Jeopardy’s” all-time best in regular season wins and money earned, earned a bye during the tournament’s first six quarterfinals, featuring winners from the past year.
In Tuesday’s episode – played against Will Wallace, a game designer from Austin, Texas, and Ryan Manton, a systems administrator from Columbus, Ohio – Harmeyer entered the Final Jeopardy question with $22,000 over two rounds, where she had 22 correct and one incorrect responses. Manton was in second, with $12,000 after the first two rounds.
The Final Jeopardy clue, in the category of Countries of the World, was: “About 80 miles from Vladivostok, its 11-mile land border with Russia is the shortest of that country’s 14 neighbors.
Harmeyer and Manton both had the correct response: What is North Korea?
Harmeyer wagered $3,000 to finish with $25,000. Manton wagered $10,001 to end with $22,001.
The next two semi-final rounds will air locally at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday on WLFI-TV18.
BiL spoke had a Q&A with Harmeyer last week, as the Tournament of Champions got rolling. Here’s more from that conversation:
PURDUE REMAINS SILENT, AS UNIVERSITY STUDENT IDs ARE ON THE ROPES IN SENATE BILL ON VOTING
Purdue is steering clear, at least publicly, on an Indiana Senate bill that would roll back state voter ID provisions that currently have state university-issued cards on the list of valid identification accepted at polling places.
But Greater Lafayette’s two state senators say their votes on Senate Bill 10 – which passed the full Senate on a 39-11 vote – were less about trying to root out voter security suspicions in Republican Sen. Blake Doriot’s proposal that campus IDs aren’t as reliable as driver’s licenses or other state-issued identification, than about assurances they have that universities want out of the voter-ready ID game.
“They are telling me the universities want their ID for campus use only,” state Sen. Ron Alting, a Lafayette Republican, said Tuesday.
Asked about that – and about how the university was approaching the changes aimed at students, as proposed in Senate Bill 10 – Purdue spokeswoman Erin Murphy said Tuesday: “We have nothing to share.”
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