OXFORD, Miss. – For University of Mississippi honors
student Betsy Morgan, a Freshman Ventures assignment to Los
Angeles turned into a real adventure that plays out on
Wednesday’s broadcast of the television game show “The
Price is Right.”
Morgan, an early-entry pharmacy student in the Sally
McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, is a contestant on the
show, which airs at 10 a.m. on CBS affiliates.
Students entering the honors college each fall are asked to
choose from one of several destinations. They’re grouped in
teams of five, given expense money and assigned a subject
to interview on a broad, “overarching” question.
Morgan, from Philadelphia, and three classmates were in Los
Angeles in December to interview U.S. Sen. Tom Haden about
social disobedience. On their first evening in their hotel,
one of her friends was searching for things to do when she
discovered that tickets to “The Price is Right” are free.
“I have watched that show since I was really little,”
Morgan said. “And I thought, ‘How awesome would it be if we
could just go and watch one of the tapings of the show?'”
After printing their tickets and going to the studio where
the show is filmed, Morgan and her companions learned that
they would be taken out in groups of nine or 10 for
interviews as possible contestants.
“When we were told that, I thought about how the people on
the show are really loud, boisterous and energetic,” she
said. “I am usually a mild-mannered person, but I thought I
could be outrageous if I had to be.”
When the crew member came by and began asking questions,
Morgan tried to come across as energetic and bubbly to
leave an impression. After her interview, she and her
friends were led back into the studio to await the show’s
beginning.
“While we were waiting for the show to start, they played
disco music to try and get everyone pumped up,” she said.
“Drew Carey came out and the theme music started playing.
Then, they called out the first name, and it was me.”
Morgan cannot say much more about her experience on the
show until after it is, but she said the experience did
change her impression on the type of person Carey is.
“I was never really a big Drew Carey fan,” she said. “Then
I met him and he was really nice and even when we were
off-air he was talking to me even though he didn’t have
to.
“I thought that a celebrity like him would gain nothing by
being nice to a girl from Mississippi, but he seemed
genuinely nice.”
For more information about “The Price is Right,” go to
http://www.cbs.com/daytime/price.
For more information about the Sally McDonnell Barksdale
Honors College, go to