BIDWELL - After Amy Hatcher Ryan attended a regional audition for a contestant spot on “Jeopardy!” in June 2006, she was told by the program staff, “Don't call us, we'll call you.”

She figured that was the end of that. But imagine her surprise when last February, Sony TV notified her she had been chosen to compete on the show.

The next month, the former Gallia County resident was in Hollywood to tape her appearance on the popular syndicated quiz show. The segment is expected to air on Thursday, June 28.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Ryan, the daughter of Bill and Samantha Hatcher of Bidwell. “The people who produce the show make it very fun and interesting.”

Due to a confidentiality agreement, Ryan could not say how many times she competed before the show airs. But she is free to discuss her experience and how it all came to be.

“I've always tried to watch the show,” said Ryan, a 1987 graduate of Gallia Academy High School. “I saw where they had an online test. So out of pure curiosity, I went on to see what it would be.

“There were something like 50 questions and it was very rapid fire,” she added. “When it was done, I said to myself, ‘Now I know,' and that was the last I heard. A few months later, I received an e-mail from Sony, which produces the show, which asked me to attend an audition.”

The audition, for people who had passed the online test, was in Chicago. There, she took a written test and then played sample games with other potential contestants, in addition to doing personal interviews, similar to those “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek does with contestants during a break in the game.

Returning to the home in Reynoldsburg where she resides with husband Jonathan and their three children, time passed and Ryan figured that was as close to the show as she'd get, until the producers notified her she would be a contestant.

In that role, she saw firsthand how “Jeopardy!” is produced. A week's worth of shows are taped in a single day, that day lasting from 7:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Ryan and other contestants were familiarized with the set and the rules.

“If you played before the lunch break, you could leave, but I went on after lunch so I saw the taping,” Ryan said. “It was very interesting.”

She found the affable Trebek to be a “nice guy,” and was impressed with how he answered questions from children in the studio audience about the show and how they could get a job like his.

Focusing and having a broad general knowledge of topics is a key to competing on “Jeopardy!,” which, ever mindful of its less than 30 minutes of air time, is as swift in pacing for contestants as it is for viewers, said Ryan.

That wasn't too much of a problem for Ryan, who worked as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution upon her graduation from Virginia's Washington and Lee University. She later obtained her master's degree from Indiana University.

“A lot of it is timing. It's a split second kind of thing,” said Ryan, now a stay-at-home mom.

Although competing on the show again is out and Ryan wishes she could have answered some questions differently, “it was a unique experience,” she said.