Luke Noffke’s 9-year-old daughter, Lydia, is in for a big surprise.
When the little girl sits down to watch Thursday’s episode of “Wheel of Fortune,” she will discover her father is one of the three contestants spinning the wheel and solving puzzles.
“We watch it every day and have pretty much forever,” Luke Noffke said in a phone interview with the Daily News on Tuesday.
The 1998 graduate of Norfolk High School and son of Norfolk residents Randy and Edie Noffke said he hasn’t told his daughter he auditioned — and was chosen — to appear on the show. Noffke said she’s the one who talked him into auditioning for the show in the first place.
“(She) said you should audition and try out,” Noffke said. “I sort of went and looked at the process of what you have to do.”
The process to audition for the show has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Noffke said.
Before the pandemic, The Wheel of Fortune Wheelmobile traveled to various destinations and would-be contestants would gather for a chance to succeed through the audition process.
Now, the audition process is done online. Those who aspire to be a contestant fill out a virtual form and submit a video. If the application is selected, representatives of the show will follow up with a Zoom meeting in which the applicants run through various puzzles found on the show, Noffke said.
After his Zoom call with the show’s representatives in October, Noffke said they told him if he was selected to appear, he would be called sometime in the next year.
“I auditioned in October and, a couple of days later, they called and were like, ‘We have a record date for you,’ ” he said.
Noffke said he was shocked to learn he was selected because the number of hopeful applicants is more than a million and only about 600 are selected each year.
The filming experience — meeting longtime host Pat Sajak and hostess Vanna White — was surreal, he said.
“They’re both amazing. They’re both super nice,” he said.
Six episodes are filmed in a roughly 12-hour day, which also includes paperwork, orientation and practice rounds; Noffke’s episode was the last on the day he recorded.
While Noffke said the day was long, the experience went by so quickly that he did not have time to become star-struck until he was on his way home, which is now located in Southern California.
“It goes by so fast that all you can do is try to stay focused and look at the board and remember, ‘Why am I here? What am I doing? What’s the category?’ Pat Sajak is literally 6 or 7 feet away, but it doesn’t even really register until afterward,” he said.
Noffke said he recommends that anyone who has thought about auditioning for the show to go through with it because the online format for auditioning makes it easy. But, he added, hopeful contestants shouldn’t say anything about how appearing on the show would fulfill their “bucket list.”
“Smile, be yourself and make sure you show that you have a decently solid understanding of how the game works,” he said.
As for how his own performance turned out, Noffke said he’s unable to divulge any details, but he is excited to watch the show, especially since he hasn’t told his daughter that he auditioned.
“We’re going to sit down Thursday to watch it like normal. She’s going to see her dad on TV, and we’re going to film her reaction,” Noffke said. “That will be pretty awesome.”
January 06, 2021 at 05:24AM
https://norfolkdailynews.com/select/norfolk-grad-to-appear-on-wheel-of-fortune/article_d0602762-4fa4-11eb-83c9-4ff1ad6ae1dc.html
Norfolk grad to appear on Wheel of Fortune - Norfolk Daily News
https://news.google.com/search?q=Wheel&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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