By now, you’ve probably heard the story of Jeopardy contestant Cindy Stowell, a 41 year old science content developer from Texas. She taped her Jeopardy appearances back in August as she was suffering from stage IV colon cancer and was competing while fighting off a high fever due to a blood infection and while she was on painkillers.
Be nice. She was fighting a high-grade fever (which turned out to be a blood infection) and was on painkillers while taping. Jesus.
— Jason (@habcous) December 5, 2016
Sadly, Stowell passed away right as her episodes were going to be aired across the country. Since Jeopardy embargoes their results until the shows air, no one knew how Stowell was going to do in her appearances, but however she did, her remarkable resolve and fight would be a victory for her and the human spirit regardless.
After winning her first two shows with relative ease on Tuesday and Wednesday, she was in third place heading into Final Jeopardy on Thursday as she was going for her third straight win. But while her opponents slipped up, she was able to nail this clue: “In 2010, in its fourth season, this TV show shifted its primary setting to 6th Avenue, two blocks west,” from the category “NYC TV.” Of course, the answer is Mad Men, and it’s not really a shocker to see that question missed by her two opponents when they couldn’t get stuff like this right:
https://twitter.com/xmasape/status/809561781505028097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Joking aside, Stowell has now won $39,600 in her three victories, and she’s going to donate all her winnings to cancer research. According to KXAN in Austin, the charity her winnings are going to is called the Cancer Research Institute with a link to visit their site.
Stowell will be going for her fourth win on Friday, and regardless if she wins, Cindy has still done a remarkable job fulfilling a dream by acing difficult trivia questions under circumstances that few if any other people will ever face.
Go Cindy.
[New York Times/Uproxx/SB Nation/KXAN]
