NJ Native To Appear On 'Jeopardy' Tournament This Week

LIVINGSTON, NJ — When she was a student at Livingston High School three decades ago, Hester Blum — now an English professor at Penn State University — was invited to try out for the Teen Jeopardy! tournament, but chose instead to go to her basketball practice. Now, more than three decades later, she's finally getting a shot (so to speak).

This week, she's been competing on the first ever Jeopardy! Professors Tournament, hosted by Mayim Bialik and running through Dec. 17.

Viewers will find out by Friday if Blum, who appeared first on an episode this past Monday, will advance to the semifinals, she said Wednesday.

Blum graduated from Livingston High School in 1991 and attended Princeton as an undergraduate and the University of Pennsylvania for her doctorate.

Now she'll have a chance to use all of her knowledge — and she has a special memory of a high school teacher who helped.

"I mentioned my forthcoming new edition of Melville's Moby-Dick in my quarterfinal contestant anecdote [on TV]," Blum noted. "I first read the novel, the focus of a good deal of my scholarly work, in 11th grade English class with Dr. Pauline Griskey."

Griskey's teaching of the Melville classic clearly inspired a lot. Hester notes on her bio that "I have edited a new edition of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick for Oxford World’s Classics; it’s forthcoming in May, 2022."

Blum is one of 15 professors chosen for the Jeopardy! tournament.

She noted, "The tournament experience has been wild, and I'm especially glad that the Jeopardy! producers chose professors from such a wide range of schools: community college, HBCU, liberal arts college, religious school, military institute, public university, regional comprehensive university, HSI, private university, technical college. It's wonderfully reflective of the diversity of higher ed across the country."

Jeopardy! airs weekdays at 7 p.m. on ABC.

Read more about Blum here.

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