Meet the Huntington native who fulfilled her dream of appearing on Jeopardy!, then went on a 15-game winning streak to qualify for the Tournament of Champions.
By Carter Seaton
HQ 127 | AUTUMN 2024
If you are a Jeopardy! fan, the names of some of the big winners like James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio and Amy Schneider are probably familiar to you. Well, you’d better add Huntington’s Adriana Maynard Harmeyer to your list. She recently became No. 11 on the show’s Leaderboard of Legends!
When Adriana appeared in 16 episodes of the nationally televised quiz show from May 29 to June 19, she always was introduced as being from West Lafayette, Indiana, but it didn’t take long for Huntingtonians to recognize the 35-year-old woman who grew up in the Westmoreland part of town. While Adriana was born in Delaware, her family moved to Huntington when she was 2 years old. She went to Kellogg Elementary, Vinson Middle and Spring Valley High School before attending Marshall, so we claim her. And equally important, she claims Huntington. The oldest of three, she has a sister, Jennifer Kilgore, and a brother, Brandt Maynard.
As a Marshall University undergraduate, Harmeyer majored in history and minored in Latin, but said she was a pretty boring student.
“I don’t know that I did a whole lot of extra-exciting things in college. I spent a lot of time at the Drinko Library; I can tell you that,” she recalled.
Apparently, her professors noticed her. Montserrat Miller, Ph.D., professor of history and Executive Director of The John Deaver Drinko Academy, said, “Adriana was a terrific student who serves as an example of the top-flight undergraduates that Spring Valley High School sends our way. I had the good fortune of having her in three European history courses at Marshall and am not the least bit surprised by the success she has had as an historian and archivist and, of course, as a Jeopardy! contestant. She proves, once more, that the sky’s the limit for history majors from Marshall University.”
During her time at Marshall, Harmeyer began to explore jobs and opportunities for a future career. A class visit to Marshall’s Special Collections housed in Morrow Library gave her the idea of becoming an archivist. So, following her graduation from Marshall in 2010, Harmeyer went to the University of Michigan where she earned the master’s degree that helped train her to follow that path. Her first job was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she worked for several years with the Lincoln Collection at the Allen County Public Library before finding her way to Purdue University and her current position as the archivist for university history. As such, she works with primary source materials like documents, letters, photographs or objects that need to be preserved — and she helps people have access to learn from them.
You might think her job would be the key to her incredible Jeopardy! run, but she would disagree. Since Jeopardy! clues can run a wide gamut, Harmeyer decided instead of spending a lot of time studying facts, she would study Jeopardy!.
“I watched old videos from Jeopardy!. I wanted to see how they phrase things, what kinds of categories they choose, how they frame the clues and the pace of the show,” she said.
Harmeyer said she played a Jeopardy! video game and Trivial Pursuit when she was young.
“I always enjoyed those kinds of things and felt like I was pretty good at it, but sometimes you wonder what you’re really capable of,” Harmeyer said. “Can you do the things you dream about? So, I set my mind on Jeopardy! and found out that I actually could do it.”
And did she ever! During her run, she won 15 times and earned $351,600 by correctly answering 331 clues for a 91% accuracy rate. So far, she is the only super champion (10 consecutive wins) of Season 40, having correctly answered 13 Final Jeopardy clues. In addition, she had five runaway wins including one via a daring $10,000 wager. She’ll return next year to play in the Tournament of Champions.
As for what she plans to do with her winnings, she told The Herald-Dispatch, “I would like to travel. I’ve always wanted to do more traveling, but I don’t have any solid plans. I think I’m still getting used to the idea that this money is real.”
Harmeyer’s mother, Angela Maynard, who still lives in Huntington, said it didn’t surprise her that her daughter did so well.
“She always loved to learn. She started reading early and loved to read — she loves to read,” Maynard said. “We were told by one of her teachers in middle school, ‘I don’t have anything to challenge her with.’ I’ve always said her brain is like a sponge. It just absorbs everything and she’s able to retain it.”
Harmeyer’s appearance on Jeopardy! caps a lifetime of hoping to be chosen for the show. She tried out for Teen Jeopardy! when she was 14 but wasn’t selected. She had also taken the show’s online quiz a few times over the years, performing well, but was never chosen.
“This last time I had low expectations,” she noted. “I passed the test and was invited back to take another test and passed it as well. After that I got to do an online audition, and I was invited to be on the show.”
The audition process took a handful of weeks and included Zoom calls, more testing and a mock game against other potential contestants. Several months went by before she got the call to appear on the show. Once she did, she packed as many clothes as possible since Jeopardy! tapes five shows a day and she had to keep changing outfits. She and her husband Neal Harmeyer, who is also an archivist at Purdue, made two trips for the tapings. Unfortunately, her family in Huntington had to watch much of her winning streak on YouTube TV because they were on vacation when the shows aired.
Appearing quite composed on TV, Harmeyer said she wasn’t really thinking about the pressure.
“I was just focusing on what was happening — just trying to get in the zone I guess — to see what’s coming up, think about my answer, be ready to buzz in and try not to get distracted,” she explained. “I was really trying to make the most of being there.”
She added that the most stressful part about the show is the timing.
“A lot of the time all three of us might know the answer and we’re all trying to hit the buzzer at just the right time. You can’t be too early, and you can’t be too late,” she explained.
For the Tournament of Champions, Harmeyer said she plans to switch study tactics.
“Now that I know I’m going back to the tournament I am doing more studying. When I went the first time, I wanted to see how I could do with the knowledge I already had,” she said.
Since she did so well on her first run without studying, her fans look forward to seeing her shine even brighter in the Tournament of Champions. Be sure to watch for her appearance. Adriana Harmeyer, Huntington’s own Jeopardy! Champion.”
