Having grown up in Alpena playing trivia games with his family, Geoff Brousseau admits to being a huge fan of the show, Jeopardy.

Now, in addition to fan, he can tag on contestant as well. When the show airs May 1 at 7 p.m. on WBKB, Brousseau will be among that day’s contestants using their trivia smarts to try and win money on the popular television game show.

“I have watched Jeopardy! since I was in grade school and played all the Jeopardy video and computer games,” Brousseau said. “But it was one of those things where I never actually thought I would get the opportunity to be on the show.”

He credits his parents, Tom and Patty Brousseau of Alpena, for developing a love of trivia in him, his brother, Nick, and his sister, Stacy. One of their favorite games to play growing up was Trivial Pursuit.

“My mom was even Knowledge Bowl coach for all of us at Lincoln Elementary School, so she went to practices and games on her own time for nine years because she believed in the importance of education and making it fun for all of us,” said Brousseau, a 2004 graduate of Alpena High School who currently lives in Denver, Colo., and works as an epidemiologist at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. He holds an undergraduate degree in Health Care Systems Administration from Ferris State University and a Master of Public Health Degree from Michigan State University.

For the last five years, Brousseau took the adult online test at the Jeopardy website, but never heard anything back. That is until late last year when he received an email asking him to audition.

“I was pretty elated,” he said.

Next came a live audition with other potential candidates. He was lucky that one of the live audition cities was Denver, so it was an easy trip downtown for him.

“Other people flew in from states all over the country just to attend a three-hour long audition and have a chance to be on Jeopardy. At the audition, you take another 50 question test to make sure you didn’t have any help on the online test,” Brousseau said.

He also had to play a “mock version” of the show that assessed his game-playing skills against other potential candidates.

Brousseau found out in mid-December that he was officially Jeopardy bound. After that, he devoted most of his free time to studying for the upcoming appearance.

“This consisted of watching all of the episodes from the current season and going over popular categories that I thought could appear on Jeopardy. I especially focused on categories that I am not that strong in like opera, ballet and theater,” he said. “When I watched the episodes, I clicked a pen as a substitute for buzzing in, since timing the buzzer is such an important aspect of the game. By the time I flew to Los Angeles for the taping toward the end of January, I felt I was about as prepared as I could possibly be.”

While he considered himself weaker in opera, ballet and theater, there were other categories he viewed as strengths, including sports, history and geography going back to his days at AHS.

When the day finally arrived to head to Los Angeles for the taping, he didn’t go it alone. His family made the trip as well.

“It was extra special for my family to fly out to Los Angeles and watch me from the audience,” Brousseau said. “They were the reason I was able to be there in the first place.”

He said the contestant coordinator for the show did a good job of making he and his fellow contestants felt comfortable, especially at first when everyone was experiencing the jitters. A mock round on the actual Jeopardy stage further helped to calm nerves and give them a feel for buzzing in and trying to get the timing down.

And then, Brousseau got to meet one of his all-time favorite television heroes.

“Alex Trebek has always been a TV legend for me, so meeting him was pretty surreal to be honest,” he said. “He was an absolute professional though. He actually had brain surgery in December 2017 and was back filming for Jeopardy in January 2018, so everyone was really impressed seeing him back to hosting so soon.”

Brousseau can’t let on ahead of time how he faired on the show, but he did say everyone expressed their congratulations to him when they found out he is going to be on Jeopardy. He even heard from a lot of friends he hadn’t corresponded with in years. Besides his family, among those who will be watching closely are a group of friends he played trivia with in the past.

“I played on bar trivia teams with a lot of my friends the past 10 years, so I said I was representing them all the way on Jeopardy,” he said, adding that his siblings planned to throw watch parties on May 1.

As for Brousseau, he’ll be congregating that day with his co-workers for a watch party at a brewery close to where they all work.

Diane Speer can be reached via email at dspeer@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5691. Follow Diane on Twitter ds_alpenanews.