Retired USPS letter carrier recalls 2007 appearance on ‘Jeopardy!’

Delivering the Mail by Allen Abel

It was Christmas night, Dec. 25, 2007, when a national television audience heard Johnny Gilbert announce: “Our next contestant is a mailman from Detroit, Mich. Please welcome Wendell Watkins!”

The program was episode 5,362 of the TV quiz show Jeopardy! The host was Alex Trebek (1940-2020), then 67 years old, a son of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, who had become a U.S. citizen in 1978. He was recently honored with a United States nondenominated (73¢) stamp issued July 22. The new stamp makes “Who was George Alexander Trebek?” the correct question to the answer “He was the first person born in Canada in the 20th century to appear on a United States postage stamp.”

[Editor’s note: A story about the Alex Trebek stamp was published in the July 22 issue of Linn’s Stamp News.]

Recorded on Sept. 11, 2007, episode 5,362 was U.S. Postal Service letter carrier Wendell Watkins’ quiz show debut and, as it turned out, his swan song.

For three decades before and after his single appearance on Jeopardy!, Watkins served a postal route along Woodward Avenue and 8 Mile Road as his city decayed around him, and anyone who survived in Detroit in those days qualified for the tournament of champions of life.

Born in 1956, now retired in Northern California, Watkins — nicknamed “Powerhouse” for his formidable physique by the foundational rocker Little Richard, whom he met by chance at a motel — well remembers his brief turn on Jeopardy!, the host, the questions, the outcome and an extraordinary aftermath.

“What stood out to me,” Watkins told Linn’s in a telephone interview, “was that on the set, Trebek was so personable. He had great presence when he was greeting us and talking to us. But as soon as that time was up, pow! He was out! Without the slightest bit of being abrupt or rude, he was out of there. He had a clock in his head.”

“My brothers and I watched a lot of quiz shows, were always good at that kind of stuff,” Watkins said. “We had the home Jeopardy! game. I thought why not try? My nephew drove me out to Chicago for the test, and the test was fairly easy.

“Before I came out on the set, I was a little nervous, but as soon as I got out there, I wasn’t nervous at all,” Watkins recalled. “I’m much more of a ham than I am scared. I’m automatically a fairly gregarious person and I’m kind of strong. When I shook Alex’s hand, he had a slight grimace on his face and I thought, oh my, I hope I didn’t hurt Alex Trebek!”

The returning champion that night, a teacher and graduate student named Cora Peck, came in with accumulated winnings of $102,402. This was not a good omen for the mailman from Detroit.

“When I would watch the show, there were categories that I really liked, categories that I kind of liked, and categories that I didn’t like at all,” Watkins said. “On my show, I did not like any of the categories. It was just the luck of the draw. I’m not in that top 10 percent that gets on there and wins no matter what the categories are.”

The categories for the first round, shown in capital letters like the show’s category board, were THE FEMININE MISTAKE, THEIR FIRST NO. 1 POP HIT, ROCKS & MINERALS, YE OLDE BIG APPLE, ANNUAL EVENTS and FURNITURE WORDS.

Wendell scored on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the capital of Finland and the singer of Sunshine Superman. But he struck out on a Daily Double about the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, while back in Detroit, a great city struggled for understanding and healing and rebirth.

In 2019, documentary filmmaker and expatriate Detroiter Pam Sporn conceived of a film that would delve deeply and meaningfully into her hometown’s disintegration and the people who somehow endured. She chose an old classmate to be the film’s host and the city’s avatar: Wendell Watkins.

The result, Detroit 48202: Conversations Along a Postal Route, presents Watkins as curious, engaged and insightful, a witness and testifier to the city’s physical decay and spiritual strength. The film still is available on demand at www.pbs.org, meaning, in a way, Watkins’ broadcast career continues, even after Trebek’s death.

Getting back to Christmas 2007 and Jeopardy!, after the first round, Watkins led with $5,300. Peck led after Double Jeopardy, with $10,200 to Watkins’ $6,500.

The Final Jeopardy category was FRENCHMEN IN HISTORY. The answer was “He was nicknamed ‘the Robespierre of the Brush,’ but unlike his friend Robespierre, he was jailed but not guillotined.”

Watkins wagered all $6,500.

The correct question was “Who was Jacques-Louis David?”

Watkins was writing “Delacroix” when Trebek said, “Time’s up.”

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