Takoma Park Middle School teacher Joe Evans, a longtime Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) educator, will appear as a contestant on Jeopardy! on Tuesday, November 4, representing Montgomery County on one of America’s most beloved quiz shows.
Evans, who has taught full-time in MCPS for more than a decade, has deep ties to the area. Though he currently lives just outside the county, he’s spent much of his life in Montgomery County since moving here in 2007 and, in a fun coincidence, he originally hails from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
“I can’t divulge too much because my students might read this,” he joked, adding that the excitement of being selected for Jeopardy! has been surreal. “Getting the call from the producer, going to Sony Pictures Studios, meeting Ken Jennings, it’s all been pretty crazy. There have been big smiles and big tears. The best moment was telling my parents over the phone.”
Evans began preparing by diving deep into trivia and general knowledge. “I did a couple bar trivias, one at Silver Branch in Silver Spring that was a lot of fun, and I looked through my local library for general information books in the 000s of the Dewey Decimal System,” he explained. “But what ended up being most helpful was watching Jeopardy! itself. The writers often pull from similar topics.”
The path to becoming a contestant was no small feat. “There’s the Anytime Test on Jeopardy.com, which you can take anytime,” Evans said. “After that, I had two callback auditions. Then the producers let you know you’re on a list for two years. Most people wait years for the call, I was extremely fortunate to get mine about eight months after my test.”
He also shared a few behind-the-scenes details from his taping experience: “The signal button is always tricky! Sometimes I rang in and thought, ‘Wait, I’m first?’ Other times it was, ‘How was I not first??’ The uncertainty never stops,” he laughed.
And for fans wondering about the familiar Jeopardy! voice, Evans said that the legendary announcer Johnny Gilbert doesn’t actually record the intros live. “A producer says your name and profession when you’re taping. Johnny records the intros later in his studio, so when I hear him say my name on TV, it’ll be my first time hearing it too!”
Evans said one of the best parts of the experience was meeting the other contestants. “You develop a camaraderie. Everyone’s going through the exact same new process, except for the returning champion,” he said. “They tape five shows a day, so you can’t tell how anyone did just from the taping schedule. But everyone will find out November 4th.”
He’s planning a small, private watch party for friends “at an undisclosed MoCo location,” and encourages everyone to tune in. “People better be watching!” he laughed. “My students, my colleagues, my family, everyone’s ready.”Evans even created a few Montgomery County-themed Jeopardy! clues for readers to test themselves:
$200: This was the year the county was chartered, also the same year as the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
A: What is 1776?
$400: Stevie Nicks saw this suburb’s name on a Beltway sign and wrote a song about it, accidentally adding an S.
A: What is Silver Spring?
$600: This is the first name of General Montgomery, the Revolutionary War general for whom the county is named.
A: What is Richard?
$800: While this song references West Virginia, co-writers Taffy Nivert and Bill Danoff were on Clopper Road when they first worked out the melody.
A: What is Take Me Home, Country Roads?
$1000: Bethesda is a Hebrew word meaning “house of” this — fitting, since NIH has had a campus there since 1938.
A: What is healing?
Catch Joe Evans on Jeopardy! Tuesday, November 4 on WJLA (ABC 7), or stream it the next day on Hulu and Peacock.
