Ask KU alumna Joanna Pergande if she wants to be a millionaire, and the answer is yes.

Pergande, 2006 graduate, appeared as a contestant on last Wednesday and Thursday’s episodes of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” After answering questions about Roman numerals and Matt Damon, she walked away with $50,000. She was four questions away from winning $1 million.

“It was really surreal,” Pergande said. “I’m a big fan of the show, and I was starstruck.”

Here’s a look, “Millionaire”-style, at the woman behind the final answer.

The contestant

Pergande’s love for trivia began when she was a little girl. Her family used to play Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy games together.

“It kind of runs in the family,” Pergande said. “My mom is really good at trivia.”

It is such a love for trivia and general knowledge that helped her do well on the show, friend and co-worker Natalie Marzonie, said.

“She likes to know random facts about things,” Marzonie said. “She knows a little bit about a lot of things.”

Pergande graduated from Leavenworth High School in 2002. She majored in Spanish and international studies at the University, and lived in Margaret Amini Scholarship Hall. She was also in the University Honors Program and studied abroad in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

Pergande got her first experience on a television game show as a college sophomore. She appeared as a contestant on the local game show “One on One,” a Jeopardy-like trivia competition between two local contestants. Pergande won her competition and received a gift certificate to a local restaurant.

After she graduated from the University, Pergande spent two years teaching English in Spain. She currently lives in Bay City, Mich., and works as a bilingual administrative assistant for the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw in Michigan.

The tryout

When Pergande returned from Spain in June, she saw that “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” was having tryouts in Detroit in August. Pergande was helping her mom, Cathy, move to Detroit, so the two women decided to try out together.

Pergande first had to pass a multiple choice test of general knowledge and current event questions.

“The questions on the test are similar to what you see on the show,” said Trisha Miller, publicist for “Millionaire.” “The questions are hard. We know that if you’ve passed the test, you’re pretty darn smart.”

Pergande passed the test and had an interview later that day, followed by a second interview on camera. After that, she was put on a list of possible candidates for the show.

“I thought it was a long shot, but they called me a few weeks later to go to New York City and be on the show,” Pergande said.

Graphic by Matt Bechtold

The hot seat

On Oct. 6, Pergande found herself in the hot seat for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

She and her mother had already paid for their plane tickets and travel expenses to New York City, had spent a day sight-seeing and even had a celebrity sighting — Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Pergande said the producers filmed a week’s worth of shows in one day, so Pergande anxiously sat with other contestants in the waiting room that afternoon, anticipating her turn on the show.

When her name was called, Pergande walked down the stairs to meet host Meredith Vieira and sat down in the hot seat.

That’s when the nerves hit, although Pergande said the whole experience was unreal.

“It was an out-of-body experience,” Pergande said. “I was trying to focus and not make a fool of myself. I was trying not to think that this would air on TV later.”

Pergande said the questions were surprisingly easier than she expected.

“I got nervous that I wasn’t going to know my questions,” Pergande said. “I didn’t think they were that bad until I got the ones that I used my lifelines on.”

Pergande didn’t have to use any lifelines until the $25,000 question about an author who “wrapped her husband’s heart in a box.” She used her “Ask the Audience” lifeline and chose the correct answer: Mary Shelley.

On the $50,000 question, Pergande used her remaining three lifelines — “Phone a Friend,” “Ask the Expert” and “Double Dip” — to correctly answer a question about historical events in April.

With the $100,000 question about satellites orbiting space, Pergande opted to play it safe and walk away with $50,000.

“It was real money and I was too nervous to guess on that one,” Pergande said. “If I had a lifeline left, I could have used it to confirm it.”

Five months after the taping, Pergande is finally able to talk about her experience. Because of the show’s confidentiality contract, she wasn’t allowed to reveal any details of the show or her earnings until after her episodes aired last week.

When the Thursday episode aired, Pergande’s co-workers threw a watch party, complete with trivia games and pretend money.

“She was pretty nervous for everyone to watch her,” Marzonie said. “But she was happy to see everyone turn out and cheer her on and congratulate her.”

Final answer

Though Pergande enjoyed being on the show, she said her favorite part was watching the show with her friends and family and being able to tell the secret of her winnings.

And as for the $50,000?

“I was going to be smart with it and use it to help support myself in the near future,” Pergande said. “I’m just going to try and save it.”

— — Edited by Realle Roth