Former Brooksville resident matches wits on ‘Jeopardy!’

BROOKSVILLE — As a child, Allison Solomon competed in the “Battle of the Books” at Brooksville Elementary School.

Her D.S. Parrott Middle School team won a “Brain Bowl” championship.

She was Hernando High School’s valedictorian in 2004.

Allison Solomon poses with Jeopardy host Alex Trebek. JEOPARDY PRODUCTIONS, INC.

Now 28, and armed with a master’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Solomon’s trivia talent will be on display for the world to see at the end of the month when she appears on “Jeopardy!”

While she is not allowed to disclose how she fared on the popular television game show, Solomon, who lives in the nation’s capital, said one highlight was delivering a shout-out to her hometown of Brooksville.

Her father, Joe Solomon, a retired teacher from Hernando High who now works as a financial adviser with SunTrust, said producers, “tried to talk her out of Brooksville, but it’s in her blood.”

“She talked about wanting to be a mermaid,” he said. “(Host Alex Trebek) didn’t know what she meant, and she said, ‘Where I’m from in Brooksville, we have a roadside attraction called Weeki Wachee,’ and she explained. It was very endearing. Allison did very well.”

In Washington, Allison Solomon works for Deloitte Consulting, managing contracts for the U.S. State Department.

Her “Jeopardy!” debut is expected to air Oct. 30, although she said “Jeopardy!” officials will send a media package this week with more definite information.

Included in her package is something that she said will make the exhilarating experience — from grueling tryouts to the sparkle of the studio lights — all the better: a picture of herself with longtime host Alex Trebek.

She said she and her parents, Joe and Virginia Solomon, and brother, Tyler Solomon, 24, have watched the program “pretty regularly” since she was a child.

And, she’s not the first one in the family who wanted to compete on the show.

“I tried out 25 years ago in Tampa when it was a cattle call and they have a bunch of people come to the auditorium,” Joe Solomon said. “It was humbling. I’m a math teacher, but I felt like I’d walked into the Mensa society meeting.

“I didn’t get past that first part.”

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Allison Solomon said the current process to get onto the show also is grueling.

“It’s really crazy,” she said. “About 100,000 people take a test in January. It’s a 50-question test and you have to get at least 35 right.”

Based on the test results, a pool of about 3,000 people are selected to audition in cities around the country.

Allison Solomon was called to audition in Washington in June. Around July 4, producers called to ask if she would be available to tape in August.

She didn’t hesitate to say yes. She was joined by her father and brother in Los Angeles.

“It was hard to tell who had more fun or who was more nervous,” Allison Solomon said with a laugh. “There’s a lot we got to see: Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard, the Hollywood sign and some of the beaches. It was a lot to pack in.”

Both Allison and Joe Solomon were impressed with Trebek, who can sometimes seem smug on TV.

“He was absolutely the opposite” of smug, Allison Solomon said. “He can be standoff-ish if he wants, but during our breaks in taping he was always engaging the audience and asking if they had questions.”

She described a shooting schedule of five shows a day with 16 to 20 contestants per day.

“He tried to get to know all of us,” she said.

Joe Solomon described Trebek as “extremely engaging.”

“I was impressed with his demeanor in between commercial breaks,” he said. “There’s a lot of cleaning up and you can watch the studio environment transpire in front of you.

“In between announcements and commercial breaks, he would come over to the audience and do, like, a little Q-and-A every time. My son got to ask him a question. He asked which celebrity on ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!’ was the smartest.

“You could tell it took Alex back. Jodie Foster was the first one that came to his mind.”

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When the show airs, Joe Solomon said the family will invite over a few friends and neighbors. He said the occasion will be especially sweet as it will be so close to Halloween, the family’s favorite holiday.

In Washington, Allison Solomon and friends plan to watch her television debut at a sports bar, where she often competes in trivia contests.

“I wanted to have a party, so I approached the bar about it,” Solomon said last week. “It’s a sports bar, but I said I was on ‘Jeopardy,’ and they said they’d take a whole side of the bar and show it. They thought it was pretty cool.

“It’s a good thing the Redskins won’t be playing,” she added with a laugh.