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Campus wonders: Did Katie Moeller win on 'Millionaire'?

Don't bother asking sophomore Katie Moeller whether she won on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. She can't say. To find out, you'll have to watch the show Tuesday, May 9, and Wednesday, May 10.

2006-05-05
By Robb Murray, Free Press staff writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 5/5/2006]

MANKATO — Don't bother asking her. She won't tell you. Which is strange because, admittedly, Katie Moeller's not very good at keeping secrets, especially when the secret is as potentially juicy as this one is.

This much she can say: On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, if you tune into the hit television game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," you'll see her bantering with host Meredith Vieira — possibly even hamming it up — in her attempt to bring home some cash during the show's College Week.

Thousands tried, but only 10 made it. Ten college students out of the thousands who applied across the country were chosen for next week's series of shows. Moeller, a gregarious sophomore in Minnesota State University's theater program, will be among them. Her TV time begins at the tail end of Tuesday's broadcast and finishes up Wednesday.

"I'm terrible at keeping secrets," she says, "but when there's money involved ..."

Why the secrecy? The show taped in January. The show flew all the contestants to MGM studios at DisneyWorld and, after treating them to all the thrill-seeking Disney can dish out, they played the popular trivia game with the lifelines and phoning a friend and asking the audience for help. They won — in theory, at least — some money. But because TV game shows work much better when viewers don't know the outcome, contestants are prohibited from speaking of their success.

If it gets out, contestants jeopardize their winnings. As of now, if — IF — she won any money, Moeller; her best friend, Jenna Langer from New Ulm; host Meredith Vieira; the show's producers; and the 200 or so guests in the studio audience are the only ones who know whether she or any of the other College Week guests won any money.

Her road to "Millionaire"? That she can talk about.

She watches the show once in a while — "I'm a fan of trivia shows in general," she says — and she noticed the show was looking for college students to audition for College Week. She, along with 1,400 college students, flocked to Lakeville to audition. She passed an initial trivia test and moved on to the interview portion.

Moeller is talkative and funny and her smile is brilliant. Spend five minutes with her and any questions of "Would she make for good TV?" are amply answered.

So she got a postcard in December saying she was in the pool of possible contestants. And a few weeks later, the phone call came. Moeller flew to Florida in January where she and the other college students — who hailed from the University of Illinois, University of Las Vegas, Rutgers University and other schools — hung out together, went to Disney World and, eventually, took their turns on the show.

Moeller's been a performer all her life. She's performed in plays since the sixth grade and now appears regularly in MSU Theatre Department productions, including musicals. She's very comfortable on stage, which helped when it was her turn to be on the hot seat.

"People are right about that chair, it makes you feel like you're outside of your head," she says. "But nerve-wracking? Not for me. Other people were worried about being in front of an audience. That's never been a problem for me."

She says she tried to be herself while playing the game. But she admits to cranking it up a notch.

"It was me," she say, "but it was me times two."

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