LaFollette man to appear on Jeopardy! 7:30 tonight on WBIR

By Charlotte Underwood 

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – LaFollette native Brian Henegar achieved his lifelong dream of appearing on the iconic game show Jeopardy! Henegar’s episode will air this Tues., April 4, on WBIR Channel 10 at 7:30 pm. 

Since he was a child, Henegar has dreamed of going on a game show and said that he always loved playing along with the game shows on TV.

One of his earliest memories is of watching The Price is Right with his parents, and he started watching Jeopardy! when he was about 2 -years-old. For the past 20 plus years, he has been trying to get on the show by taking the online Jeopardy! test each year and now at 40, his hard work and preparation have paid off. 

“I’ve always wanted to be on Jeopardy! Since I was a little kid; I’ve been watching it since I was two years old, literally,” Henegar said. 

He is “super excited” about being on the show and said he hopes his fellow Campbell Countians will tune in to cheer him on Tuesday night.

Henegar, who still lives in LaFollette, is a guest service agent for Pilot Flying J in Knoxville, which he says he has fun doing, but he never lost hope of appearing on a game show either and has spent his free time training and preparing for one.

“I’ve been trying to get on Jeopardy! for over 20 years; I started taking the online test as soon as it was available,” Henegar said. He explained that you can only take the online test once a year and that while he had passed it several times, he had never received a callback. 

“I would take the online test every year and just kept plugging away at it. I would do pretty well every year, scoring in the high 30s, and low 40s,” Henegar said. 

The way the online test works, contestants are given 50 different Jeopardy! clues in 50 different categories; they have to score at least 35 or higher to get a passing grade. 

To get himself trained to “buzz in” before answering, he used an old car cell phone charger that would plug into the cigarette lighter in your car.  “They had the little button on top, well you can press down that button and it’s just like pressing a buzzer button for a game show, so I got in the habit of pressing that button and giving an answer before the contestants would give their answer on TV, so I could get used to the motion of buzzing in quickly before answering,” Henegar said. 

He has many friends who are into game shows as well, but one stands out as the “best teacher in all of this” who never stopped believing in him and helping him train.

“His name is Tom Zulewski, and he was invaluable for helping me train for this,” Henegar said. 

Other ways Henegar prepared to go on the show was by “brushing up” on trivia topics such as state capitols and his “blind spot” which was Shakespeare plays and characters.

“But really, when you get up there, you just have to trust that you know enough to get through it. I never got discouraged or gave up, and it finally paid off. My mom and I were talking about this and it’s like she said, ‘very few people can say with all honesty that they have fulfilled their childhood dream’, but I’ve gotten to and you’re going to get to see it on Tuesday,” Henegar said.

When he finally made it on the show for the taping of his episode in January, he said it “Felt like the culmination of a dream.”

He had taken the Jeopardy! Anytime test in March 2022.

In late July, Henegar received the call and email from the show’s producers while he was vacationing in Florida for his birthday, which felt like the best birthday present ever.

When he returned home to Tennessee, he then had to pass another test while in a Zoom meeting with the show’s producers and had to answer at least 35 of the 50 questions correctly.

This got him into the next round where he then attended an in person interview in August in Las Vegas to compete in a mock episode, on which he did well. 

“There were about 10 of us auditioning for this. Afterwards, the producers told me I was in the contestants pool and that over the next 18 months I may or may not get called to be on the show,” Henegar said. 

He said he waited for several months, then the first week of December he was contacted by the show asking him about his availability in January. He and his sister Katie flew to Los Angeles to tape his episode, which took place on Jan. 17 at the Sony Studios.

It was his first trip to California.

“We had a great time seeing the sights and taping the show was surreal. Our green room was the set for Wheel of Fortune. They did our makeup and hair and it was such a surreal thing because the Wheel for Wheel of Fortune was right there.”

Henegar said when he finally walked onto the Jeopardy! set he felt “Every emotion you could feel at that moment.”

“It was crazy; I had watched this show every night for almost my entire life and I’m there, I’m actually in the studio. It didn’t feel like it was really happening, I kept waiting to wake up the whole time,” Henegar said. 

He said his friends and family, especially his parents had always encouraged him to never give up on his dream. “My dad David told me, the one thing he had always prayed for was ‘win or lose, I want you to have your shot on Jeopardy.'”

This wasn’t Henegar’s first time being on a game show. He appeared on the syndicated version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ in 2016 when he won $30,000 on that show.

He said that was an amazing experience to be on that show as well, but he never stopped trying out for his dream of being on Jeopardy! and now its “All come together.”

“This is the dream I have had my whole life, and I made it come true. I suppose when I see it on Tuesday, I will actually believe that I did it.”

Henegar said he wanted to encourage others to follow their dreams, and that they, too, could make it on a game show. 

“A lot of people know I’m a big game show fan and people will call me and say ‘I wish I could go on a game show,’ well, I’m a guy from a small town in Tennessee, and I’ve gotten on two game shows in my lifetime. You cannot let yourself give up on this, because you can do it. I’m living proof that you can,” Henegar said. 

Personal note from WLAF’s Charlotte Underwood:

I grew up in school with Brian Henegar; we attended Valley View Elementary, as well as high school and graduated from Campbell County High School together in 2001. I remember Brian was obsessed with game shows from the get go, and I don’t use that word lightly. He seemed to eat, breath and drink game show facts and terminology. Sometimes, being in class with Brian was almost like being on a game show yourself; it was never boring and often lot of fun to be around. I hadn’t spoken to Brian in 22 years, not since graduation, but calling him up for the interview over the weekend was like nothing had changed. He was still the nicest guy and fun to chat with and still obsessed with game shows, but this time we got to chat about him achieving his lifelong dream. That’s not something you see every day. So congrats to hometown LaFollette boy Brian Henegar for never giving up and being an inspiration for others to achieve their dreams! (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 04/03/2023-6AM)