South Brunswick Woman on 'Jeopardy!' Wednesday Night

South Brunswick, NJ - Make sure you tune in to "Jeopardy!" Wednesday night!

That's because one of your South Brunswick neighbors will be a contestant. That's right: South Brunswick resident Wendi Rottweiler will be playing. Wendi, a librarian, used to work for the South Brunswick Public Library, but she now works for the Woodbridge library system, where she runs their Iselin branch.

Rottweiler, who lives off Raymond Road in South Brunswick, watches the show regularly, but not every night. She credits her love of history and being a librarian with helping her know enough to compete. And it's quite the grueling process to be selected for the show.

"They have an online test that they offer every 12-18 months," Rottweiler told Patch. "About 100,000 people, including me, took it. From there, they invited 7,500 to audition. I auditioned in Philadelphia: It's a written test and then if you pass that, you do a mock game with a few questions."

She didn't hear from them for a whopping 15 months until one day, out of the blue, she got a call from a Culver City, California number in the middle of her workday.

"They said, 'Hey Wendi, it's 'Jeopardy!" Can you come out?' They invite 400 people to compete. So to go from 100,000 down to 400 — that's pretty incredible," she said.

Rottweiler said she was "definitely nervous" the day of.

"They record a whole sequence of episodes in a row. For example, we filmed our show at the end of August and Alex (Trebek) was talking about Christmas shopping and things like that," she said.

Also: Using that buzzer is really difficult.

"It's a real skill to use that buzzer," she said. "There's a whole timing to it. I really think young men who have more video game experience might be better at it."

Tune in to find out how well Wendi did. "Jeopardy!" is on ABC at 7 p.m. Rottweiler is competing as a new contestant, against fellow newbie Jaime Ryan, from California. They'll go up against returning champ Tim Aten of Ohio, who's previously taken home $53,000 from the show.