Answer: Nicole Cocklin, a travel agent with Travel Leaders in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Question: Who was a winner on "Jeopardy!"?
Correct! Cocklin appeared on Jeopardy this week and won $20,001 by answering the Final Jeopardy answer about a book of the Bible. She has been a travel advisor with Travel Leaders in Fort Wayne for four years, following in the footsteps of her mother, Teri, who is a longtime agent.
Cocklin said she has always loved the game show and watched it whenever she could. When she couldn't, her mother would record it and they would watch it together. She has always read extensively and watched a lot of television and movies and generally "absorbed information like a sponge."
Using that ability, she first passed an online test of 50 questions, followed by live auditions in Detroit. Cocklin was asked at the live auditions what she would do with the money if she won. She answered that it would be something related to travel, perhaps a trip on the Orient Express, something that has always intrigued her.
She went to Los Angeles in October and spent a long day at the studio recording shows. It was three hours of rehearsal she said, "practicing, getting 'miked' and so forth." She added, "We had to have our hair done ourselves, but they did our makeup." Her parents were able to attend the taping of the show on Halloween in Los Angeles. She had practiced with them using a "light-up clicky" pen in the weeks before the taping.
While she did well in her second game and answered the Final Jeopardy question correctly, Cocklin lost to tough competitors.
Although "Jeopardy!" was an amazing experience, Cocklin said she does not have the show business bug but she will always have the travel bug. She is looking forward to a cruise that departs from Venice next June and heads to several Greek islands, as well as Croatia and Montenegro.
Cocklin specializes in cruises and France and has always loved to travel, with her mom's career making some of that possible. Her love of France started with a trip as a college student with her mother, followed by a trip with classmates. Cocklin grew up knowing a lot of people she now works with and has developed her own clientele as well. She has a mixed customer base of older and younger people and groups.
On her Travel Leaders page, Cocklin talks about having always had a passion for travel. It says, "One of the best parts of being a travel agent is that I get to help design trips for my customers that allow them to seek adventure, enjoy relaxation or explore somewhere they've never been. In other words, I get to help make their travel dreams a reality!"
On her page, Cocklin also talks about how whenever she would like to see a new destination, she always come back to cruising. "The process works like magic," she writes; "you board the ship, unpack, go to sleep-and then when you wake up the next day, you're in a totally new place."
Cocklin said Travel Leaders provides "amazing resources" and, at 26, she sees being a travel agent as a career and thinks she'll "stick with it." She has been to two Travel Leaders national conferences and has attended other events like the Delta Vacations University.
While she had always thought about a possible career in travel, Cocklin majored in music at Furman University in South Carolina and she is a member of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chorus.
And in case you were curious, here's the response that gave Cocklin her win:
The answer: "The title of this Old Testament book is from the Greek for 'song sung to a harp'."
The question: Psalms?
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