When Pat Sajak spins the wheel and Vana White turns the letters this week on the TV show Wheel of Fortune, a Door County native will be competing for big money and prizes.
Southern Door’s 1981 graduate John Kipp will be a contestant on the popular show this Wednesday. Kipp, who currently lives in Minnesota, was born and raised in Door County and has been a freelance product photographer for the past 35 years.
He sent in an audition tape to apply as a contestant last August and subsequently had a phone interview with a contestant coordinator and had two Zoom calls with producers playing the Wheel of Fortune game.
After a long wait, Kipp finally received an email in January confirming that he was chosen as a possible contestant for the show. One week later, he flew out to California where 18 other people were selected to be part of six shows being taped in one day. The final taping was done at Sony Studios in Culver City, California.
Over 10,000 contestant applications are received every year for the Wheel of Fortune.
This was not Kipp’s first time as a game show contestant. He competed on another game show called Mall Masters on the Game Show Network in 2000.
Kipp’s appearance on the Wheel of Fortune will be shown at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday on Fox 11 WLUK.
(This story originally stated Tuesday for the show, it was corrected to Wednesday, we regret this error)
