STANWOOD — Lianna Neyens got to come on down on “The Price is Right.”
She won a brand new car and $10,000.
That will fill up a few tanks of gas for Neyens, 43, a Stanwood High School personal finance teacher and volleyball coach.
She had been sworn to secrecy since the August taping at CBS studios until the episode aired Thursday.
She said it was all a blur anyway.
“I was really nervous,” Neyens said. “I’m like, I play this game with my students all the time. I have to do good or they’re going to think I’m a horrible teacher. That was my thought.”
On the show, she gave a shoutout to her Stanwood students.
Neyens was a contestant during the summer trip to California with her 13-year-old daughter Harper, a friend and her friend’s daughter.
“Our daughters went to Disneyland that day. We went to ‘The Price is Right,’” she said.
She applied to be on the show before the trip, advancing through phone and Zoom auditions. At the CBS studio she was interviewed again, as was everyone in line.
“You don’t know if you’re going to get called until the show starts,” she said.
She was ready.
For the two weeks prior, she binge watched “The Price is Right.” She studied prices in the grocery store, even more so than usual. Her ongoing homework is tracking prices for her household budgeting curriculum.
Neyens grew up in Marysville watching the game show with her grandparents.
She adapts versions of “The Price is Right” games in her classroom as a fun teaching tool.
Neyens planned to surprise her students by showing her episode on Friday.
TV cameras are much more intimidating than teens.
“Your brain gets left in the audience and it’s like this out-of-body experience,” Neyens said.
Being called to “come on down” was just the first step.
She had to be closest, without going over, the actual retail price of an item in bids with three other contestants.
She went through two rounds before her guess on a pair of speakers landed her onstage with host Drew Carey to play the pricing game “Gas Money.” She was on during “Dream Car Week,” with prizes including an Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati.
Up for grabs was a slate gray 2022 Infiniti QX50, a luxury SUV made by a division of Nissan. In the game, she had to pick the four cards with the wrong car price to win. A fifth card had the correct price and choosing it would mean game over. The price cards ranged from $49,380 up to $59,300.
Along the way, she racked up cash.
When she was three cards in with $8,000, she was tempted to cash out and quit.
Carey told her: “You have some thinking to do now, Lianna … If you mess up on this, you’re going to lose your $8,000 and you won’t get anything for the whole game.”
The audience yelled advice.
“Most said keep playing. Of course, they have nothing on the line,” Neyens said. “I went in with the mindset to have fun. If you lose, you don’t really lose because you didn’t start with anything.”
She went for it and won the car, priced $53,595, and the cash.
In true game show fashion, she screamed with joy, jumped up and down, and hugged the car.
She didn’t get lucky in her spin of the big wheel for a chance to win more in the grand finale Showcase Showdown.
Neyens credits pricing knowledge, the audience’s help and some good guessing for her haul, valued at $63,595.
The cash will help pay the California prize taxes on the car, which she doesn’t have yet.
She’ll pick up the Infiniti QX50 from a local dealership in a few weeks, about the time her son Xavier turns 16.
“He’s definitely not getting this car,” she said.
Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterbrown.
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