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Glenwood grad wins two nights of ‘Jeopardy!’

John Colson
Post Independent
Aspen, CO Colorado
Contributed photo"Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek, left, with Danial Adkison.
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GLENWOOD SPRINGS – Danial Adkison won his first round on the “Jeopardy!” quiz show on Wednesday night and the second round on Thursday night, too.

Thursday’s victory brought his total winnings to $31,800, up from the $13,200 he won Wednesday and means he will be playing a third round Friday.

During Thursday night’s contest, Adkison scored a from-behind coup to pull ahead at the end of the game.



When faced with the answer “This fruit of the blackthorn tree flavors a type of gin,” Adkison smiled, nodded and asked, “What is sloe?”

Adkison, 36, is a graduate of Glenwood Springs High School now working as the deputy chief copy editor for Time magazine in New York.




He was at work when the show aired Wednesday, he told the Post Independent on Thursday.

“A whole bunch of us got together in the conference room to watch it,” Adkison said on Thursday morning, still suffering a hoarse throat “from all that cheering” and the lingering effects of a cold.

He planned to be watching with his workmates again Thursday. He won a spot on the show based on tests he took early last year, and his segments of the show were taped in December in Los Angeles.

The quiz show, created by television impresario Merv Griffin in 1964, is hosted by Alex Trebek. “Jeopardy!” features a unique answer-and-question format dealing with such subjects as history, literature, the arts, pop culture and geography.

In a studio with a live audience, Trebek provides the answer to the contestants, who then must activate a buzzer indicating they are ready with a question that fits Trebek’s answer.

Adkison said the button is key to success at the game.

He explained that if a contestant hits the button before Trebek finishes, that contestant’s button is disabled for a moment.

“If you jump the gun, you’ll get locked out, especially if it’s an easy question,” Adkison said, because the other contestants can jump in during the delay.

During Thursday’s game, he could be seen several times pumping the button in his hand feverishly while one of the other contestants got to take the turn.

Adkison knew how he’d done on the Wednesday game before he sat down to watch, though he couldn’t tell anyone.

“It was suspenseful for me, too,” he admitted, explaining that while he knew he had won, he could not recall all the details of the night.

And as he headed into his second round Thursday night, which also was taped in December, he continued to keep the outcome secret.

“I would not want to ruin the surprise because now people are really into it,” he said Thursday morning.

He was peppered with phone calls, emails and social-network contacts “as soon as the show was over,” he said, “and a lot of them were from people in Glenwood, people I grew up with.”

Adkison’s mom, Deb Bamesberger, of Snowmass, said she and her husband had some friends over to watch the show, “like a little, mini-Super Bowl party.”

And they’ll do it again tonight, she said.

“Hopefully he wins again so we can still be excited,” she said on Thursday before her son’s second triumph.

jcolson@postindependent.com

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