Redondoan wins Wheel of Fortune, after being inspired by grandmother
Sarah Harris fulfilled a lifelong dream when she appeared on Wheel of Fortune in January. Photo by Carol Kaelson, Quadra Productions, Inc.
by Rachel Reeves
As a child, Redondo Beach resident Sarah Harris would watch Wheel of Fortune with her grandmother, the late Evelyn Massengill. Evelyn was her “academic grandmother,” who advocated for education and sent her grandkids to educational camps, in contrast to her other grandmother, who baked cookies and exuded warmth. Evelyn rarely watched TV, but when she did, she watched the iconic American game show Wheel of Fortune.
“I’ve loved it ever since,” Harris said of the show.
Throughout her life, Harris would watch Wheel of Fortune here and there, but never devoutly. She built a busy life for herself, working full-time as a communications manager at Loyola Marymount University, raising two kids as a single parent, and writing a blog that earned her the title of brand ambassador for O, The Oprah Magazine.
Still she’d watch the show when she had time. She also played on the Wheel of Fortune app. On Jan. 25, more than a decade after Evelyn died at the age of 94, Harris spun the wheel as a contestant on her grandmother’s favorite game show.
She’d become a contestant by accident. When the Wheelmobile, the show’s promotional vehicle, rolled into Loyola Marymount in February of 2020, a month before the coronavirus became a pandemic, she left her desk to take photos for the university’s social media platforms. First, she wrote her post: “Reason 9,321 why it’s so amazing to go to college in Los Angeles: Wheel of Fortune comes to campus looking for possible contestants! Tryouts are until 3 p.m, today only in St. Robert’s Auditorium!”
The promoters were running simulations at St. Robert’s Auditorium; Harris decided, on a whim, to try her luck. She later wrote on Facebook that she had been “fangirling” the whole time.
“I was like, if I get called in to do a few rounds I’ll go up, if not, no big deal, I’ll go back to my desk,” she said.
Weeks later, the coronavirus became a pandemic. Harris devoted her energy to adapting to a new normal. She wrote on her blog: “The sudden derailing from my precisely scheduled life, hurtling straight for the shapeshifting unknown, rattled me. I’ll admit that I was in shock for the last three weeks, just pressing on and celebrating little wins like ‘I didn’t leave the house today’ or ‘I finally got an Amazon Fresh delivery time!’ Now we’ve turned the corner into the next month and our lockdown, or its rhythm, has finally started to feel familiar. Still, with no end-date in sight, I am staging an intervention on my own behalf to stop worrying about all of the things I cannot control and focus on what I can – caring for myself.”
She didn’t think much more about the application she’d submitted the day the Wheelmobile came to campus, but she did begin watching Wheel of Fortune because she had more time.
“It became the transition from my day to my night,” she said. To her surprise, she got called for an interview with the game show organizers through Zoom, during which she was asked to solve puzzles and guess words.
“I wasn’t totally hopeful,” she said of her performance, but later, again to her surprise, she got an email announcing the date she was to appear on Wheel of Fortune. Harris decided she’d just treat it as a “nice day to get out of the house and actually wear real clothes.” She resolved, if she won any cash, to take her kids on a road trip and donate toward scholarships for kids with single parents.
Filming the show in Culver City ended up being more fun than she anticipated. Because there wasn’t an audience and contestants couldn’t bring their families, there was an unusual camaraderie among competitors. She felt at ease, comfortable, at home on the set of a show she’d watched all her life.
After spinning the wheel and telling Pat Sajak in the bonus round that “a blooming orchid” was the “living thing” he was looking for, Harris won $56,000. The next day at a department meeting at work began with a recording of her final round.
After her big win, Harris’s father reminded her of how much Evelyn had loved Wheel of Fortune.
“I like to think her energy was helping me through it,” Harris said. ER