Woodbridge Librarian on 'Jeopardy!' Wednesday Night

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

That's because a woman you may have seen at the Woodbridge Public Library will be a contestant. That's right: Woodbridge librarian Wendi Rottweiler will be playing. Rottweiler lives in South Brunswick and used to be the local history librarian at the Woodbridge library main branch. She is currently the branch head at the Iselin branch.

Rottweiler 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.

By the way, the Woodbridge Public Library main branch is holding a special event Wednesday night to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.