Trivia Whiz: Smarts and a Speedy Finger Lead CWA Officer to "Millionaire"

Naturally, Steve Kummer wanted to win a bundle of money when his “fastest finger” landed him on ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” in late February.

But that wasn’t the only thing the good-natured trivia whiz had on his mind: He imagined getting to the famous “hot seat,” shaking host Regis Philbin’s hand and introducing himself as a proud member of the Communications Workers of America.

That, it turned out, was too much to hope for.

Kummer, vice president of Local 7908 in Medford, Ore., won a tidy $125,000. But he didn’t get to drop CWA’s name on air.

In the show’s moments of humorous banter, Philbin was too busy poking fun at Kummer over a difference of opinion about the University of Notre Dame — Philbin is the school’s biggest fan, Kummer isn’t a fan at all.

“On the breaks, he’d be laughing and saying, ‘He’s doing great, but he’s still not my friend because he doesn’t like Notre Dame!’” said Kummer, 43, laughing in a telephone interview.

Kummer, a network technician for US West, had been trying to get on “Millionaire” since the hit game show debuted last August. His wife, Anne, who shares his passion for trivia, has been trying, too.

“I’ve probably qualified 10 times and my wife has qualified twice as many times,” he said. “She’s a lot better trivia player than I am.”

Players qualify by calling a toll-free number and correctly answering three questions with a touch-tone phone. About 240,000 people call each day the phone lines are open, and only 6 percent get the answers right, a publicist said.

From there, for each show, 40 callers are chosen at random by computer to take part in a second telephone game. The top 10 are flown to New York City to compete on TV for a chance to get on stage with Philbin.

On a Sunday in early February, a woman from “Millionaire” called with the good news: Kummer made the top 40. He was told to be ready Feb. 17 to take another five-question test by phone.

Kummer was in Seattle then, at a CWA seminar for new officers. With District 7 Vice President John Thompson at his side, Kummer made the call from his hotel room. He got the answers right and punched in Thompson’s cell phone number so the show could reach him.

“I’m sitting at a table at the conference and about 4:15 that phone started ringing,” he said. “I just jumped up. I was floating.”

One week later, Kummer was en route to New York for a Feb. 25 taping, bringing a retired neighbor as his guest. Anne Kummer sacrificed the free trip, deciding to stay at home and be on her husband’s “phone a friend” list.

Each player can list five people whose smarts or heads full of trivia may help them in a pinch. Producers call all five and tell them to stand by their phones during the show’s taping. It’s one of three “lifelines” players can use one time as they move up the ladder of 15 questions that leads to $1 million.

At 5 p.m. Feb. 25, it was show time. One player, then another, won a spot in the hot seat by being the quickest to correctly answer a “fastest finger” question using computer screens at their seats. The clock was ticking on the hour-long show and Kummer began to doubt he’d be one of the lucky few to get a shot at $1 million.

But the hot seat opened up and Kummer won his way on stage, quickly and correctly putting four states in order from south to north by their nicknames: Sunshine, Sunflower, Keystone and Evergreen (Florida, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Washington).

“Regis was saying, ‘Time’s up, let’s see who got it.’ And I saw the green arrow by my name on the screen,” he said. “I went from 80 beats a minute to 8,000 beats. I thought my heart was coming right out of my shirt.”

After greeting Philbin and being ribbed about Notre Dame, Kummer started zipping through the multiple-choice questions. But the $16,000 question — the name of the anthropologist who produced “The Power of Myth” TV series — stumped him.

He turned to a “phone a friend,” though it wasn’t his wife. He called a lawyer he knew from North Dakota, where he was raised and lived until 1990. His friend immediately knew the answer and put Kummer one step away from $32,000. Players who pass the $32,000 mark don’t go home with less than that, no matter how they do on subsequent questions.

Using his last two lifelines — polling the audience and having two of the four possible answers removed — Kummer got the $32,000 question right, naming Vidal Sasson as the hairdresser who’d served in the Israeli Army.

At that point, time ran out and the show’s next taping wasn’t until Monday, Feb. 28. Kummer and his neighbor spent the weekend in New York, courtesy of ABC.

When he returned to the show three days later, Kummer took a wild guess at the $64,000 question and nailed it. He took an educated guess on the next question and won $125,000.

But his luck ran out at the $250,000 level, when he was asked how Genghis Khan and Kubla Khan were related (grandfather-grandson). A wrong answer would have reduced Kummer’s winnings to $32,000. He happily took a check for $125,000, said farewell to Philbin and went backstage to call his wife.

In Medford a week later, the family gathered with friends to watch the show. His friends had no idea how he’d done. Kummer had signed a confidentiality agreement, swearing him to secrecy.

Since the show aired, Kummer has gotten a kick out of being recognized, especially by children. And people love to toss the show’s catch phrase at him, “Is that your final answer?”

The family had a low-budget trip to Hawaii planned for spring vacation and Kummer said the money means “we’re going to have little more fun.” He plans to invest most of the rest of the money, or possibly pay off his house.

Anne Kummer, a former telephone worker and CWA member, is still hoping for her own shot at “Millionaire.” Her only regret about her husband’s appearance is that he didn’t get to mention the union.

“I have an aunt in North Dakota who’s about 91 years old and she was a CWA member,” she said. “I just wish they could have said, ‘CWA,’ because my Aunt Alma would have been beaming.”