A math and science teacher from Santa Maria, California...

Jeff Kirby

Hi Santa Maria, this is Jeff Kirby, a teacher in Orcutt. Watch me on Jeopardy!, but be sure and do your homework first.

Season 26 player (2009-10-12).
Season 16 player (1999-12-08).

Jeff returned to the show in 2009 without explanation after appearing as a challenger almost a decade prior. In his second appearance in 2009, he wore the same tie as he wore in his first appearance in 1999. Jeopardy! fans and archivists with the J! Archive discovered the fact that Jeff had reappeared ineligibly by comparing pictures of Kirby from his two appearances. On 2009-10-14, Jeopardy! producers released a statement saying that they "relied on information provided to us by Mr. Kirby. He did not disclose that he had previously been on Jeopardy! His having been on the show before made Mr. Kirby ineligible as a contestant and therefore ineligible to receive any prizes from the show." A 2009-10-16 New York Post article on the story reported that when he was "[r]eached at home, Kirby declined to comment".

At the time of his second appearance, Jeff was a fifth-grade teacher at Pine Grove Elementary School in Orcutt, California. A 2009-09-05 news article in the Santa Maria Times that featured Jeff stated he had been teaching in the "Orcutt Union School District for 15 years, ever since graduating from Cal Poly, with most of that time as a fifth-grade teacher".