Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings was born in 1974 just outside Seattle, Washington, but grew up overseas. His family spent fifteen years in Korea and Singapore, where his father worked as an attorney. His only lifeline to American pop culture during those years was TV on the Armed Forces Network, where he watched Jeopardy! religiously after school every afternoon. He moved back to the States to attend the University of Washington for a year, and after putting school on hold for a two-year Mormon mission in Madrid, Spain, transferred to Brigham Young University in 1996. At BYU, he double-majored in English and computer science, and graduated in 2000 alongside his then-fiancée Mindy Boam, whom he married that fall. While at BYU, Ken captained the university's academic competition team, which consistently finished in the top ten at national quiz bowl tournaments. Since graduating, he has worked writing and editing questions for National Academic Quiz Tournaments, a company that organizes quiz competitions attended by hundreds of colleges and thousands of high schools nationwide. Ken also began to notice a parade of his friends and acquaintances from the world of quiz bowl appearing on game shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, where many were able to pay off their student loans and buy flashy sports cars. With this in mind, Ken began to revive his childhood dream of appearing on Jeopardy! Ken was working as a software engineer for a Salt Lake City health care staffing company in 2004 when he got the phone call telling him that his contestant audition had been successful and he would appear on a June game of Jeopardy! He spent a month making flash cards and cramming on familiar Jeopardy! subjects like U.S. Presidents, world capitals, and "potent potables" (Ken is a teetotaler). Much to his surprise, Ken's Jeopardy! appearance extended beyond a single game in June: he took advantage of a recent rule change allowing Jeopardy! champs to appear on the show indefinitely, and spent the next six months hogging America's TV screens. Before losing on the November 30 show because he didn't know enough trivia about H&R Block, Ken won 74 games and $2.52 million, both American game show records. The streak made Ken Jennings a 2004 TV folk hero, and he appeared as a guest on shows from The Tonight Show and The Late Show with David Letterman to Live with Regis and Kelly and Sesame Street. Barbara Walters named him one of the ten most fascinating people of the year. The Christian Science Monitor called him "the king of Trivia Nation" and Slate magazine dubbed him "the Michael Jordan of trivia, the Seabiscuit of geekdom." ESPN: The Magazine called him "smarmy (and) punchable," with "the personality of a hall monitor," thus continuing America's long national struggle between jocks and nerds. Following his Jeopardy! streak, Ken's product endorsements have included FedEx, Microsoft Encarta, Allstate, Cingular, and even his onetime nemesis H&R Block. He speaks about the importance of learning at college campuses and corporate events, and has co-invented two trivia games: the Can You Beat Ken? board game from University Games, and Quizzology, a CD trivia game from Major Games. September 2006 will see the Random House release of Brainiac, Ken's book about his bizarre Jeopardy! adventures and about the phenomenon of trivia in American culture. Ken currently lives outside Seattle, Washington, with his wife Mindy, his three-year-old son Dylan, and a deeply unstable Labrador retriever named Banjo.