Local "Jeopardy!" winner heads to Tournament of Champions

The morning of his first appearance on "Jeopardy!" Ben Bishop of Seattle realized he faced a bigger challenge than beating competitors to the buzzer or even knowing the answers: He'd neglected to pack his dress slacks.

The Amherst College senior stepped onto the Los Angeles set clad in a pair of his dad's plaid golf pants, his new lucky charm.

"After what they did for me on the show, they're always with me now," he joked.

Bishop, 21, won $115,800 over five days of competition on the television game show, more than any other contestant this year. His last appearance was Monday night.

He'll head to Las Vegas next month when "Jeopardy!" tapes its Tournament of Champions. There, he'll battle 14 other trivia mavens to win between $5,000 and $250,000 more and revel in their shared pursuit of random knowledge.

Who knew skills honed on Lakeside High School's quiz-bowl team would become so lucrative?

"He's the everything of the family; he's a pretty incredible kid," said big sister Naomi Bishop, of Seattle. "He's the social one and the brainiac and pretty much everything. He's pretty ridiculous. He's a great athlete and the nicest person you've ever met. It couldn't have happened to a better kid."

Ben Bishop, who studies economics and geology at the Massachusetts college and is co-captain of its squash team, says he's loved trivia as long as he can remember. He took the show's online test and scored well enough for a tryout.

In October he flew to Los Angeles for taping with his parents. The geography buff thrilled at one of the first categories: "Vowelless Countries."

"There's always this sense of 'Is he going to know this? I know it, but is he going to know it?' " said his mom, Shirley, who sat in the audience.

He won four shows — all taped in one day, with him wearing his father's pants — and lost his fifth, taped the following day. He says his goal was to win at least one, to become a "Jeopardy!" champion.

Besides the money, there's the flattery. Fans on the show's online-message boards compared Bishop to another local "Jeopardy!" champ (and quiz-show legend), Ken Jennings, of the Seattle area. In 2004 Jennings won more than $3 million and established the longest-ever winning streak on the show.

One anonymous Craigslist user proclaimed Bishop's performance — and smile — "phenomenal."

"The people who know me think I look better on TV," Bishop joked. "But I'm flattered by them."

There's also the e-mails and phone calls from long-lost friends and teachers. The biggest surprise was hearing from Gary Pounder, the math teacher at Washington Middle School who first encouraged Bishop's trivia bug.

"I was glad to hear from him and to be able to thank him," Bishop said. "He did lord it over me that he knew more of the answers than I did."

What to do with all that money? He took his roommates to dinner at a local Amherst brewpub, a thank you for their support and training. He plans to donate to Kiwanis Camp Casey, a Whidbey Island camp for kids with physical disabilities where he has volunteered as a counselor. And he'll probably take a trip this summer after he graduates.

For now, he's packing those pants for the trip to Vegas.

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com