A junior from Sunrise, Florida...

Allison Peña

What happened when you found out you were going to be a contestant?
Well, originally, Local 10 News, my local ABC affiliate, was supposed to ambush me at school, but due to Hurricane Wilma, the day they were supposed to ambush me, we had a hurricane and we were all at home, so my mom had to keep it a secret for a week because of the news, but then because she couldn't tell me, she took me out to lunch with a bunch of my friends and they surprised me. I walked into the restaurant--had no clue why all of my friends were sitting there. And then they told me and I started jumping up and down. And then... Couldn't really get over it. I don't think I have yet.

How did you prepare for today?
Um, I didn't get power until a week ago, so I haven't had access to internet, I haven't had access to anything. I've only had school for four days up until now. So I didn't really have very much time to do much preparation, but my attitude with it has been, "If I know it, then I do, and if I don't, well, then someone else can have it."

Are you a big Jeopardy! fan?
Yeah, I'm a big Jeopardy! fan in general. One of the only problems is, because it's on at like 7:30 by my house, a lot of times in the middle of doing homework, or I have something after school. I don't necessarily get to watch it. Such that two weeks during Hurricane Wilma I couldn't watch TV at all.

Do you have a favorite Jeopardy! category?
Anything about England. I'm a pretty huge anglophile, so I think that would make me pretty happy to see on the board.

What will you do with the money if you win big?
Um, I think my mom wants me to save it all for college, but she did say that if I won a significant amount of money, I could take some of it and take a few friends to Europe.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Ten years from now I see myself in a stable career with a family, probably one or two kids that are pretty young. Married. Happy.

What are you most looking forward to today?
I think the overall experience--getting to meet Alex, I mean, he's Alex Trebek, c'mon, he's the host of Jeopardy! so that's a pretty huge deal, but also just getting to meet the kids and getting to know fourteen other individuals who are very similar to me in the respect of liking Jeopardy!

2006 Teen Tournament wildcard semifinalist: $10,000.

Allison appeared in the following 2 archived games:
#4937, aired 2006-02-14 Iddoshe Hirpa vs. Allison Peña vs. Andrew Kreitz 2006 Teen Tournament semifinal game 2.
#4934, aired 2006-02-09 Papa Chakravarthy vs. Allison Peña vs. Kenny Schlax 2006 Teen Tournament quarterfinal game 4.

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