2008 Woodie Awards
First-year student helps cousin win $449K on game show
Dave Matthews
Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Campus
Last Thursday most college students were either celebrating Valentine's Day with their significant others or sitting around being bitterly single. However, first-year Anna Starling did neither-she was in Los Angeles helping her cousin Katie win $449,000 on last night's episode of the popular game show Deal or No Deal on NBC.
Deal or No Deal is a game of logic where a contestant picks one of 26 suitcases that he or she believes contains the highest amount (usually ranging from one cent to $1 million). The rest of the show is a process of elimination as the contestant picks suitcases to try and figure out how much money he or she does have in the suitcase. Periodically, a "banker" will call in and offer the contestant a sum amount to buy the contestant out of the game.
Starling realized she'd be helping her cousin play the game when one of the show's producers woke her up Tuesday night at 2:30 in the morning.
The next day, a flight to Hollywood was booked and her whole family, based in the Minneapolis area, left the Midwest for sunny California.
Starling's mom, Deb, actually originally auditioned for the show in Minneapolis, but the judges gravitated more toward Starling's cousin, Katie Henslin, a young mother in her late 20s who works for a children's hospital and as a youth pastor for a local church.
Although it was the show's producers who determined Henslin's panel and not the contestant, Henslin was glad that her closest consultants were mostly kept all in the family.
"We're all incredibly close, and all in the Twin Cities," she said.
Henslin's panel included Anna and Deb Starling, Henslin's dad Bruce, her brother Tyler, and the pastor of the church Henslin works for.
Although Henslin and Anna are only cousins, Henslin said the fact that their family is all boys makes their relationship closer.
"(Starling) is pretty much more like a sister to me than a cousin," she said.
The family's time in California was different for Starling. After being picked up from the airport they were all put up in a hotel catering specifically to game show contestants, ranging from trivia geeks on Jeopardy to hip hop dancers on MTV's Randy Jackson Presents America's Best Dance Crew.
Deal or No Deal is a game of logic where a contestant picks one of 26 suitcases that he or she believes contains the highest amount (usually ranging from one cent to $1 million). The rest of the show is a process of elimination as the contestant picks suitcases to try and figure out how much money he or she does have in the suitcase. Periodically, a "banker" will call in and offer the contestant a sum amount to buy the contestant out of the game.
Starling realized she'd be helping her cousin play the game when one of the show's producers woke her up Tuesday night at 2:30 in the morning.
The next day, a flight to Hollywood was booked and her whole family, based in the Minneapolis area, left the Midwest for sunny California.
Starling's mom, Deb, actually originally auditioned for the show in Minneapolis, but the judges gravitated more toward Starling's cousin, Katie Henslin, a young mother in her late 20s who works for a children's hospital and as a youth pastor for a local church.
Although it was the show's producers who determined Henslin's panel and not the contestant, Henslin was glad that her closest consultants were mostly kept all in the family.
"We're all incredibly close, and all in the Twin Cities," she said.
Henslin's panel included Anna and Deb Starling, Henslin's dad Bruce, her brother Tyler, and the pastor of the church Henslin works for.
Although Henslin and Anna are only cousins, Henslin said the fact that their family is all boys makes their relationship closer.
"(Starling) is pretty much more like a sister to me than a cousin," she said.
The family's time in California was different for Starling. After being picked up from the airport they were all put up in a hotel catering specifically to game show contestants, ranging from trivia geeks on Jeopardy to hip hop dancers on MTV's Randy Jackson Presents America's Best Dance Crew.
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