Graduate student spins, wins big

A few months ago, Mark DePasquale, a first-year MBA student, decided it would be fun to fill out the application for "Wheel of Fortune."

"I'd done it before, and nothing ever came of it," he said. "But I figured ‘Why not?'"

He was called for a phone interview, but a few months went by without any other contact, and DePasquale forgot about the show. But they didn't forget about him.

"I just woke up one day and I had an email that said, ‘Come to LA in two weeks.' "

DePasquale was chosen to audition for Family Week, so he got to bring a guest. He chose his little brother, Steven, a freshman at Cal Poly. The pair went to Los Angeles for a day of auditions where they did tests and puzzles, and afterward two-thirds of the auditionees were cut.

"It was really fun. You just play games all day. I almost didn't go to the audition because I had to drive two hours to LA, but I'm glad I did. Even if I hadn't been cast, it was worth it just for the audition," DePasquale said.

The brothers got a call the next day that they had been chosen to appear on the Family Week show.  "Wheel of Fortune" films six shows each day, so a lot of time on set is spent waiting around.

"It was surreal. You have to get there at 6 a.m., but you never get bored. They make it fun for you, plus you get to meet cool people from all over the country. It's like you're at a carnival all day," DePasquale said.

They competed against two other teams of two, and ended up winning their round and moving on to the bonus round.

"I wasn't surprised [that we won]," he said. "I knew we would be better than everyone else because we auditioned with them and saw the people we were up against. So we kind of knew we would win, but it was still exciting. The weird thing was that after we won our round and lost the Bonus, we were like, ‘Oh, what a bad day.' "

Their episode aired Wednesday, Sept. 21.

The DePasquales still walked away with $15,300 to split and each one got a five-day trip for two to Lake Placid. "We'll probably take our sisters," DePasquale said. "That would be a lot of fun."