A resident of the tiny town of Ocate, N.M., just a few miles from Wagon Mound, proved that she can go bankrupt two or three times in just a few minutes but still have a tidy sum to get her back home.<\/p>\n
We’re referring to Terri Mares, who with her daughter Tracy Alcon, made the trip to Culver City, outside of Los Angeles, in December, for the taping of the popular CBS program, “Wheel of Fortune.” The game involves trying to figure out words and familiar phrases on the basis of letters that appear on the board. Contestants are allowed to “buy” vowels to help compose words and phrases.<\/p>\n
Getting on the program that stars host Pat Sajak and the letter-turning Vanna White was an arduous process that started with taking tests and undergoing interviews at the Buffalo Thunder Hotel near Albuquerque earlier.<\/p>\n
Terri, a former business manager for Wagon Mound Schools and later the comptroller for Luna Community College, said she’s always been a bit competitive and thought of appearing on Wheel of Fortune as a great challenge and honor. “There must have been up to 150 people interested in taking the tests to get on the program,” Terri said.<\/p>\n
Soon enough, she received notice that Wheel of Fortune was interested to having her on the show. She mentioned many forms that needed filling out and talks by attorneys who explained some of the ground rules, such as not ever having appeared before on Wheel of Fortune or about “quiz show shopping.”<\/p>\n
Surprisingly, Mares said, a lot of activity was crammed into the three days of orientation. “We got to practice spinning the wheel, and about how we planned to introduce ourselves on the program. Wheel of Furtune is not a “live” program, and Terri explained that although the program was taped on Dec. 1 last year, it didn’t air until Jan. 3.<\/p>\n
Terri\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s turns at spinning the wheel were almost as if the spirits had conspired against her. Her spins seemed determined to land on the “bankrupt” spot. She said that some of the wheel’s wedges contain, for example, a $1,000 reward but others work the other way, bankrupting the players.<\/p>\n
She took it in stride and was able to use some of the guaranteed $1,000 consolation prize to spend “Ubering and going to a shopping mall.”<\/p>\n
Back, home Terri and Tracy heard from hosts of people who had seen the Mares duo on TV. Local resident Leo Armijo asked Terri at Wal-Mart, “Why did you pick up that wedge?” implying that she might have won extra cash if she’d left the wedge untouched. “But I like taking risks,” she said. One never knows what the wedge may be hiding.<\/p>\n
Terri said that if she had won a large sum, she might have used it to make improvements to her church in Ocate. And she said her husband, Louis “Pepe” Mares was supportive of her and Tracy’s trip west. He has an auto mail route in the area, and though he didn’t make the trip to California, he was one of many “fans” who watched Terri on TV.<\/p>\n
Tracy and her husband, Wayne Alcon, have three children, Hunter, Lincoln and Aspen \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all of whom proudly watched their grandmother as she appeared on the popular program.<\/p>\n
Internet web sites list average viewership of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wheel of Fortune\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at more than 10,000,000. Terri said that figure doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t surprise her, as even in this sparsely populated part of northeastern New Mexico, her TV appearance drew considerable attention. Strangers even stopped her to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You look familiar.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A self-described \u00e2\u20ac\u0153navy brat,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Terri grew up in Pokomoke, Md. She met Louis while both were in the service in Heidelberg, Germany.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read parts of the Bible. The late Thomas Oliver Mallory used to teach a course called The Bible as Literature, at Highlands University. That whetted my appetite. And it inspired me to use a few passages in this column (not that the Bible is intended as a Book of Laughs).<\/p>\n
So in recent columns I have invited readers to answer some biblical trivia. And this week, I learned never to take on a anyone much more knowledgeable than I. The Rev. Katie Palmer, a newly installed minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Las Vegas expanded on my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153big inning\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reference regarding the bible\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mention of baseball.<\/p>\n
Palmer provided a much more detailed answer to my item, as follows: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the big inning Eve stole first. Adam stole second. Cain struck out Abel. The Giants and the Angels were rained out.<\/p>\n
My sister Dorothy Maestas must have delved into the same passage, from Genesis, as she wrote: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where does one start to answer this conundrum? Well, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s begin with Genesis \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIn the big inning,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and revisit the Garden of Eden, where Eve stole (first base?) and then Adam stole (second base?). The only other reference I can think of is that Cain struck (out?) his brother Abel.<\/p>\n
And finally, Ed Littleton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s batting average was 1,000 percent when he responded to my recent column in which I asked what non-human animal accompanied Joseph, Mary and Jesus on their journey to Egypt.<\/p>\n
Littleton correctly said that Joseph followed the instructions of the angel, who told him to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153take your wife and child and FLEA to Egypt.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
One more: How do we know the men, according to the Bible, are supposed to make coffee for church events?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weight: 228
\nToday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weight: 227<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A resident of the tiny town of Ocate, N.M., just a few miles from Wagon Mound, proved that she can go bankrupt two or three times in just a few minutes but still have a tidy sum to get her back home. We’re referring to Terri Mares, who with her daughter Tracy Alcon, made the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1591,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}