Maybe it’s a coincidence.
Maybe Federal Wayans have natural talent for guessing the “right price.”
Maybe there’s something in the water.
For the fourth time since 2012, a person from Federal Way has won money on the popular, California-based game show “The Price is Right.”
Thomas Jefferson High School graduate Lt. Keegan Giles recently won $10,000 on the show. His winning move? Picking his lucky No. 15.
“I graduated out of West Point in 2015,” Giles said. “So, I was wearing one of my class jackets, and it had a 15 patch on it. When I got the last two boxes, it was 10 and a 15, so obviously I thought it was fate telling me I had to choose 15.”
He chose right.
Giles, who is currently stationed at Fort Irwin in California, graduated from Thomas Jefferson in 2011, finishing his senior year as captain of the high school’s football team.
It was his time at West Point Academy that got him on the show.
“The Price is Right” was filming a college rivalry episode and, because the Army and Navy are big rivals, show producers were seeking graduates in the area, Giles said.
“We actually have a pretty nice-sized graduate chapter here and, when they reached out, some people contacted me looking for names,” he said. “Me and a couple of my classmates were like, ‘Hey, yeah, why not? That’d be a fun opportunity to go and see ‘The Price is Right’ and try to get on the show.’ ”
Giles had never been to a live recording of a show, let alone participated in one.
He had watched the show growing up, however.
The 24-year-old advanced to the main round by guessing the price of a Vespa scooter, a prize he would later take home in addition to the money.
Meeting show host Drew Carey was an experience in itself, he said.
“You’re there for a while, and we were there and he’d been cracking jokes the whole time,” Giles said. “He’s a pretty funny dude.”
In the main round, Giles had to guess which item out of two options was half off. He guessed correctly three times in a row.
“It was interesting because I’m an avid Amazon shopper, so my wife was looking at curling irons, and that’s what the last item ended up being,” he said. “Guess which one of these items were half off, and I guessed the right one, a curling iron.”
Giles then had to guess which box the prize money was in, — box 10 or box 15. His lucky number as the guide had him winning the money, and it also sent him to a round where the three top-scoring contestants each had to spin a wheel to see who can come closest to spinning one dollar.
The first contestant drew a $0.95, Giles’ also got to $0.95, but the third spinner, the winner, spun $1.
“She beat both of us and then moved on to the Showcase [Showdown] at the end,” he said. “I walked away with my Vespa scooter and then the prize money.”
Giles said he doesn’t know how he and his wife will spend the prize money yet, but feels he was lucky.
“It had to be something because the chances of me getting selected, and then getting selected wearing my class jacket, and going with that number and having that be the winning number – the probability of that, it has to be pretty low,” he said. “I did have a little bit of luck on my side that day.”
In 2014, Federal Way sisters Mimy Evans and Tammy Tu won $49,000 in cash prizes on “The Price is Right.” That same year, Evans’ friend and Federal Way resident Jackie Jarvis won $34,900 on the show. In 2012, Emmeline Aquino, also from Federal Way, went on down for “The Price is Right.”