Ken Jennings may be the highest-paid game show contestant of all time, but that’s not what is most important to him. Jennings is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes casually called the Mormon Church) and he’s never been afraid to share out his faith.<\/p>\n
Jennings’ run began during “Jeopardy!’s” 20th season with the episode aired on June 2, 2004, in which he unseated two-time returning champion Jerry Harvey, and continued into season 21. On November 30, 2004, Jennings’ reign as “Jeopardy!” champion ended when he lost his 75th game to challenger Nancy Zerg. During this time, Jennings’ shot to being a national superstar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very happy before all this. And we felt we needed to just stay real and normal through all the craziness,” Jennings stated.<\/p>\n
During his “Jeopardy!” winning streak, Jennings was a software engineer for CHG Healthcare, a healthcare-placement firm in Salt Lake City, Utah. Jennings has appeared on other TV quiz shows, adding to his earnings and making him the record holder, at a total of US $3,623,414.29.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to Europe, so I guess that was our big splurge after winning,\u201d confesses Ken. \u201cMy wife Mindy served a mission in France and I served in Spain, so she showed me around Paris and I showed her around Madrid, and that\u2019s sort of the only really big thing we\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n
“We just realized that using money to buy toys doesn\u2019t really make one any happier. If the money\u2019s been able to buy anything it\u2019s bought time. I\u2019m able to spend more time now home with my family and less time at the office.”<\/p>\n
During his Jeopardy! reign and throughout his appearances and interviews after the show, Ken\u2019s religion as a Latter-day Saint was a relatively common subject.<\/p>\n
“There were opportunities to bring up the Church,\u201d says Ken. \u201cAlex would ask me, if I was going to tithe my winnings, so suddenly you\u2019re talking about tithing on national TV. I decided that early on the only thing I could do was just be myself. And if there\u2019s some lingering impression that this fairly normal if not slightly nerdy guy, and yet is Mormon, then I think that\u2019s okay. That was sort of my goal all along\u2014to be just the normal guy who was also Mormon.”<\/p>\n
“Sometimes people have said to me, \u2018Thanks for representing the Church\u2019 or \u2018You were a good representative of the Church,\u2019 but that really wasn\u2019t something I consciously thought much about. I never thought, \u2018Oh, I can go out there and be the Mormon guy.\u2019 I was just myself.”<\/p>\n
It was because of Jennings upbringing that he believes he is so passionate about learning, which helped him be so successful on gaming shows.<\/p>\n
“Quite often people have also asked if my LDS upbringing has had any effect on me and I\u2019ve been able to say, \u2018Yes, actually knowledge and education are particularly privileged in LDS circles’. We believe the glory of God is intelligence and of all the things we can get in life, the only thing we\u2019re going to take with us is what we have learned. And that\u2019s the way I was raised\u2014to think that way\u2014that there is nothing as valuable as learning.”<\/p>\n