Federal Way resident Mimy Evans, along with her sister Tammy Tu, were big winners on “The Price is Right,” with the duo taking home approximately $49,000 in cash and prizes from the gameshow.
Evans and Tu’s episode aired Thursday and Evans said she’s looking forward to the episode so she can remember some of the details that became blurry in all the excitement of taking part in a cherished American tradition.
“They hold up my name, and my sister’s name, and we start freaking out, jumping up and down,” she said. “And we realize, ‘Oh my gosh, we actually made it.’ We freak out, we go to the front, barely able to collect our thoughts.”
Evans said she can’t remember what the first item they got to bid on was, but did remember they barely missed winning. She noted they were in the second half of the show, so with that first miss, they only had two more chances to make it on stage to meet Drew Carey and see where luck would take them.
“The next prize was a set of four watches, and we bid and we got them. We freaked out, we go on stage, we hug Drew from both sides. And we’re jumping up and down. It was kind of a blur because we just couldn’t even believe we were on stage. I’m sure we’ll look silly.”
Evans said they got to play the “Ten Chances” game. In this game, contestants are given the opportunity to correctly guess the price of three prizes in 10 tries, with the final prize being a new car.
In Evans’s case, the new car was a Dodge Avenger. Evans recalled that her sister immediately handed her the writing board and pen and she struggled with the game. Her first prize to guess on was a pizza maker that it took three tries for her to get the price correct. The second prize was a karaoke machine, and it seemed as though some divine intervention took place, Evans recalled.
“This person … who’s in charge of the game in the back, he did something where he was supposed to move something over, and the card magically fell down and it displayed the real price of the karaoke machine, so they gave it to us,” she said, disbelief still tinging her voice. “We’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is great.’”
Evans said that left them with three guesses on the car, and she took two guesses but was unable to nail the price of the car.
“We had one last try left, I’m looking at my sister in a panic, and she takes the pen from me, and she said she zeroed in on somebody, and she feels it was like a divine calling, that she knew what it was. She took the pen from me and wrote down some numbers,” she said. “He pushes the button, and we got it right. And it was insane, and we just go crazy. We actually won a car on ‘The Price is Right.’”
Evans and her sister’s run of good luck continued, when it came time to spin the big wheel to see who went to the Showcase Showdown.
On their first spin, they got .45 from what Evans can recall, and then on their second spin, hit .55, giving them $1 and adding $1,000 to their total haul.
“We’re just freaking out, like, you’re kidding me. We just won a car and $1,000? Did this really happen?” she said with a laugh.
Finally, Evans and Tu tackled the Showcase Showdown. Evans said they passed on the first option, and were given the chance to bid on a package that included a trip to Miami and a Kia Forte.
“(We come back from the commercial break), and he (Carey), comes to us first and said the retail value of your showcase was $24,000 something.
And so we were off by about $3,000. We’re just hoping that somehow we win. He goes to the ladies … and they actually go over. So we won The Showcase Showdown. We won both cars.” Evans and Tu were part of a siblings episode of “The Price is Right” and had their other two sisters with them that day.
While they never expected to win almost $50,000 in prizes and cash, she said they were able to work everything out among themselves about who got what and so on.
“We definitely had to talk and haggle about what we would keep … We figured it out, we still love each other and we’re very excited,” she said.
Last month, Federal Way resident Jackie Jarvis also won big on the gameshow.
