Final Jeopardy: U.S. Vice Presidents
The Final Jeopardy question (3/30/2012) in the category “U. S. Vice Presidents” was:
More VPs have been from this State than any other, including 2 20th century VPs who were its governor.
Beau Henson prevailed against two guys yesterday to become a 3-day champion. Today, if he wants to come back Monday, he will need to defeat these two ladies: Ruth Robbins of Jacksonville, NC and Sarah Curtis, originally from Oceanside, CA. And we wonder again: can one of them beat Beau?
Beau found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double before the first commercial break in “Wild Cats.” He had $2,800 because he was getting everything right, and that was $2,400 more than Sarah in second place. He risked $1,000 and he was RIGHT.
The cougar has the Guinness record for most other names in English, over 40, including this 4-letter name. show
Ruth finished the Jeopardy! round in the lead with $2,800. Beau was next with $2,600, thanks to some blind guessing. Sarah got out of the hole at the bitter end and finished with $600. But after the commercial break, Sarah was awarded $2,000 on a prior answer judged wrong. So she and Beau were tied.
Beau found the first Daily Double in Double Jeopardy! in “Languages of South American.” He now had $7,400, $4,200 more than Sarah in second place. He bet $2,500 and took a guess with Chile. That was WRONG.
With 1.5 million speakers, Italian is this country’s second most spoken language, Arabic is third and German is fourth. show
Beau also got the second Daily Double in the category “Michael at the Mike.” He had $8,900 but decided on a more conservative bet of $2,000. This time, he was RIGHT.
In 2011 this singer said of his band’s breakup, ‘We have to thank all the people who helped us…for these 31 years.’ show
Despite a lot of downs, Beau managed to get more ups so he finished in the lead with $11,300. Sarah was second with $7,000 and Ruth was in third place with $5,200.
Only ONE of the players got Final Jeopardy! right today.
“The vice presidents have been elected from 21 states. More than half of them have come from just five states, New York (11), Indiana (5), Massachusetts (4), Kentucky (3), and Texas (3).” (wikipedia)
The 11 Vice Presidents from New York are:
Aaron Burr, 3rd VP (Jefferson).
George Clinton, 4th VP (Jefferson and Madison); 1st NY gov.
Daniel D. Tompkins, 6th VP (James Monroe); 4th NY gov.
Martin Van Buren, 8th VP (Andrew Jackson); 9th NY gov.
Millard Fillmore, 12th VP (Zachary Taylor)
William A. Wheeler, 19th VP (Rutherford B. Hayes)
Chester A. Arthur, 20th VP (James A. Garfield)
Levi P. Morton, 22nd VP (Benjamin Harrison); 31st NY gov.
Theodore Roosevelt, 25th VP (William McKinley); 33rd NY gov.
James S. Sherman, 27th VP (William Howard Taft)
Nelson Rockefeller, 41st VP (Gerald Ford); 49th NY gov.
You will get a bit of a different set if you go by state of birth. Aaron Burr, Chester A. Arthur, Nelson Rockfeller won’t be on it while one of Grant’s VPs will.
Ruth wrote down “Texas.” That cost her everything but a dollar.
Sarah got it right and doubled her dough, so she now had $14,000.
Beau wrote down “TN,” which has produced two vice presidents. He bet $2,701, and finished in second place with $8,599.
Alex Trebek complimented Sarah on winning: “A very slow start but a hot finish.”
