Student wins 50k on TV show

Do you want to be a millionaire? Pitt student Breann Vular certainly did when she won… Do you want to be a millionaire? Pitt student Breann Vular certainly did when she won $50,000 on one of America’s popular television game shows.

And now, her winnings have given her campus celebrity status.

Vular, a freshman biology major, appeared on the NBC show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” with host Meredith Viera in the Nov. 21 and 22 college-week episodes.

When auditions for the show came to Pittsburgh’s Station Square this past August, Vular hadn’t even intended to audition, let alone qualify to be a contestant.

Instead, she accompanied Anthony DeVido, an American University student and friend of Vular, to “Millionaire” auditions. After waiting in line for two and a half hours, she decided there would be no harm in filling out the audition screening quiz for fun.

After she passed the trivia test, producers granted Vular, but not DeVido, an interview at the audition.

She simply tried to play the “cute, bubbly type” and talk a lot in front of the producers, she said, not expecting anything to come of the experience.

But a brief postcard and a phone call from NBC two weeks later delivered the news that Vular would indeed compete on the show.

“This isn’t actually happening to me,” Vular thought when the good news came.

With the goal in mind of winning $25,000 to help her pay for her next year’s Pitt tuition, she embarked on her quest, this time with DeVido accompanying her, to win $1 million in New York City on Oct. 25.

The next morning at 5 a.m., she and DeVido, who would support her in the audience, left for NBC’s “Millionaire” studio on Central Park. Preparations for the filming began at 6 a.m.

Until noon, when the show’s taping began, Vular and the 11 other contestants of college week met with lawyers, publicists, hair and makeup stylists and spoke with Viera. As exciting as it may sound, the contestants spent most of the time sitting in a room, fighting off boredom and anticipation, with the comfort of cell phones prohibited by the producers, she said.

Once filming commenced, Vular was the second contestant to go.

“Watching the kid before me backstage, I didn’t know any of his question’s answers,” she said about her wait to get into “Millionaire’s” infamous hot seat. But once her turn onscreen began, “Everything went so fast, it was such a blur. The first couple of minutes I can’t even remember.”

Right before she stepped onstage, the producers of the show warned Vular that she could not call anyone in her hometown of Hopewell for lifelines because the phones were down.

Despite the setback, she breezed through the whirlwind of her first set of questions, until a query about what was located at the top of the Acropolis tripped up her streak of correct answers.

Using the poll-the-audience lifeline to confirm the correct answer, the Parthenon, Vular pressed on toward her coveted $25,000 question.

After winning more than $16,000 by answering nine questions, Vular said the question valued at $25,000 was the first really challenging one, a science question about metals. Instead of guessing, she used two of her three remaining lifelines by phoning a friend, who luckily was not from Hopewell, but advised her to the wrong answer, and lowering the answers down, 50/50 style to reveal two answers not directed by her over-the-phone adviser.

Following her gut instinct and going against her phone-a-friend’s advice, Vular picked the correct answer and secured her $25,000 winnings.

This question ended the show’s airing on Monday, Nov. 21, and the filming took a commercial break.

During the intermission, Viera and Vular made small-talk and the makeup artist fussed over them.

“The lady must have at least put four pounds of makeup on me,” she said.

Filming commenced again for the Nov. 22 episode a few minutes later, and she now had nothing to lose with the next question worth $50,000.

If she would guess and answer incorrectly, Vular was still guaranteed $25,000 in winnings. So she guessed, and she guessed right.

With her next question of $100,000 asking in which city Martin Luther King Jr. presided over a Baptist church, she didn’t want to risk her $50,000 earnings and chose to walk away instead of answering.

“In a matter of 48 hours, I had left Pitt, won $50,000 and came back to Pitt,” Vular said after returning from the excitement of TV game shows.

Strangers often recognize her from the show, which aired last week. Her home of Beaver County has applauded her successes, featuring Vular in news articles in the Beaver County Times.

One store owner gave her grandfather an entire stack of the newspapers for free.

After keeping silent for nearly a month about her success, Vular watched the show on WPXI with friends and family. Relatives gave her numerous VHS recordings of her NBC experience. She now eagerly anticipates her check’s arrival in the mail.

“I was just so completely elated. My whole goal was winning $25,000, and I doubled that,” Vular said. “It’ll be a pretty good Christmas present.”