Jeopardy! Champ Ken Jennings to Speak

Published: September 27, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minutes

In 2004, this person won 74 consecutive games on the long-running television game show Jeopardy! and will be coming to Southern Utah University on Tuesday, Sept. 27.

Who is Ken Jennings, the all-time Jeopardy! champion?

Jennings will be the third speaker in this semester’s Convocation Lecture Series, with a presentation titled “The Rewards of Curiosity,” at 11:30 a.m. in the SUU Auditorium.

In 2004 Jennings initially competed on Jeopardy! and then spent the next six months as the show’s champion. Since then, Jennings has been on several other game shows including Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, 1 vs. 100 and Grand Slam. He was also an “expert lifeline” on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Jennings lost in a head-to-head competition on February 14, 2011, to an IBM computer designed to beat humans at Jeopardy! named “Watson.”

According to his official website, Jennings was born in Seattle but grew up overseas where he spent 15 years in Korea and Singapore. While there, his only connection to American pop culture was through TV, and he watched Jeopardy! every day after school.

Jennings went to the University of Washington for a year and, after a two-year hiatus, transferred to Brigham Young University where he double-majored in English and computer science.

He currently lives outside Seattle with his wife Mindy and their two children.

As with all University Convocations, Jennings presentation is free and open to the public.

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