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41-year-old Cindy Stowell has dreamed of being a Jeopardy contestant for her entire life, but she didn’t get the opportunity to audition for a spot on the show until earlier this year.
Stowell took the primary candidate test online just earlier this year. After passing, she moved forward to the in-person audition phase in Oklahoma City.
Before she went out to meet anyone from the show in person, however, Stowell sent a message to Maggie Speak, a contestant producer on the show, asking, “Do you have any idea how long it typically takes between an in-person interview and the taping date?
“I ask because I just found out that I don’t have too much longer to live. The doctor’s best guess is about six months.”
At that point, Stowell had been fighting Stage 4 Cancer for many years of her life. She went on to say, “If there is the chance that I’d be able to still tape episodes of Jeopardy! if I were selected, I’d like to do that and donate any winnings to … charities involved in cancer research. If it is unlikely that the turnaround time would be that quick, then I’d like to give up my tryout spot to someone else.”
Speak encouraged Stowell to audition, reassuring the woman that she would work as hard as she could to get her a timely audition and taping date.
Thankfully, everything worked out. Stowell passed the auditions and filmed her episode just three weeks later.
Very few people on the show knew it at the time, but when Stowell was taping, she was fighting a high-grade fever and on painkillers. The fever, they learned later, had actually been caused by a blood infection.
Stowell’s episode is set to air on December 13 – but she will never have the chance to watch it.
On December 5, Cindy Stowell passed away from her illness. She had been a science content developer who lived in Austin, Texas, with her longtime partner, Jason Hess.
The Jeopardy team, and all of us, are keeping Hess and Stowell’s family in our thoughts during this time.
