Creston High School grad wins second place on Jeopardy

Following the last commercial break on the Jan. 13 episode of Jeopardy, the camera focused on host Alex Trebek as he revealed the final question.

The category: Broadway musicals.

The clue: “Iowa Stubborn” was the second song heard in this show when it opened in 1957.

The 30-second thinking music began, and third-place contestant Abbie (Seeger) Micucci, a 1991 graduate of Creston High School, instantly knew the answer.

Her response: What is “The Music Man?”

Micucci was the only contestant to answer correctly, and her $3,000 wager doubled her score, lifting her into second place. Although she didn’t win the game, Micucci said the final Jeopardy question made her once-in-a-lifetime experience all the more fun, especially because of its personal connection.

“’The Music Man’ was written by Meredith Wilson, who happened to live in Mason City, Iowa, which is my parent’s hometown,” she said. “When I saw the clue come up, I almost thought that it couldn’t possibly be this easy.”

Micucci grew up in Creston, attended Central College in Pella and now lives in Westborough, Mass., as a stay-at-home mom. A lifelong watcher of Jeopardy, she has a knack for remembering what she calls “random, useless knowledge.”

“I can’t always remember what I need at the grocery store when I go there, but I can remember what somebody wore at the Oscars a few years ago,” she said.

When Micucci told friend and fellow CHS grad Emily Cook that she was going to appear on Jeopardy, Cook wasn’t really surprised.

“She’s always been really good at trivia,” Cook said. “She used to beat me at Trivial Pursuit soundly.”

John Rose, a retired Creston social studies teacher, heard about Micucci’s selection over Facebook and made it a point to watch last week. He said Micucci is the first student of his to appear on the show.

“I wasn’t surprised it was Abbie,” he said. “She was an excellent student.”

Prior to the show’s air date, Rose told Micucci through Facebook to not forget to answer in the form of a question, reminding her of the days when she and her fellow students played Jeopardy as a review game in his classes.

As Rose watched final Jeopardy from his home in West Des Moines, he, like Micucci two months prior, got excited.

“I knew when they asked that question that Abbie was going to nail that one,” he said.

Micucci brought her husband, two children, parents and grandmother to the taping at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Calif. She had to sign an agreement not to discuss the outcome of the game until the show had aired, so last week she and her family met some friends at a local restaurant to watch it together.

Looking back on her experience, Micucci said one of the things that most stood out to her was how personable the show’s crew was. From coaching her how to act her best on camera to helping her with her timing on the buzzer during the game, she said the crew goes out of its way to keep the show light.

“The staff at Jeopardy were really wonderful people,” she said. “I left feeling like it was fun.”