CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A traveling nurse from the Chicago area will appear on a popular game show this week.
Peggy McEvilly-Reed, of Minooka, said she submitted audition tape to the producers of Wheel of Fortune in November 2019 with the help of her mother, Ann, who was a longtime fan of the show.
“She’d always say, ‘Why don’t you go on the show?’ and I’d say, ‘I don’t know, Mom,’” McEvilly-Reed told the Joliet Herald News. “And then one day, we made the audition tape."
Several months after submitting her audition tape, McEvilly-Reed received a letter to attend an audition in Chicago. She was one of about 80 applicants that day, and one of only 20 who received follow-up letters that they were “put in a pool to be contestants,” McEvilly-Reed told the Joliet Herald News.
Then in August 2021, McEvilly-Reed received a call to be a contestant, and in October, she traveled to California to tape an episode.
McEvilly-Reed, of Minooka, will appear on a Wheel of Fortune’s “Secret Santa Holiday Giveaway” show at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
But, McEvilly-Reed told the Joliet Herald News that this week's airing will be an emotional experience, as two people from her family will be “watching from heaven” - her uncle Bob McEvilly and her mother, Ann McEvilly. Bob died Dec. 4 and Ann died Feb. 6, 2020.
Before her uncle died, he told her he was looking forward to seeing Peggy on TV.
McEvilly-Reed said she thought about her mother during the taping.
"I went on the show to honor my mother," McEvilly-Reed said. "...my mom, was right there with me, whispering, ‘Buy a vowel.'"
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