CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA: 'Jeopardy!' continues to struggle in retaining a champ for longer than a day in the last week of Season 39. It has now crowned Lucas Partridge as the champ for the episode that aired on July 26, 2023.
Previous champ Julie Sisson could not keep the title for long as Partridge gave an exceptional and unbeatable challenge to his fellow contestants. He will be facing Alicia Schaffer, a physicist from Indianapolis, Indiana, and Zach Razavi, a palliative physician from Saint Paul, Minnesota in the second-last episode on Thursday, July 27, 2023.
Who is Lucas Partridge?
Partridge's 'Jeopardy!' profile calls him a school counselor from Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a licensed Mental Health specialist and Legal and Ethical specialist. His LinkedIn profile reveals that he is currently employed at Clark County School District, where he has been working as a full-time professional for the past six years. Partridge has also worked in the same position for Portland Public Schools and has more experience from different high schools situated in different parts of the country.
The 'Jeopardy!' champ received his undergrad education from New York University with a Bachelor of Science in Media/Culture/Communications and Child/Adolescent Mental Health. He went on to receive his Master's in Education from the University of Georgia where his chosen focus was professional school counseling.
How did Lucas Partridge become 'Jeopardy!' champ?
As the three contestants, Partridge, returning champ Sisson and Alex Muhler, moved into the Final Jeopardy round, it was only a matter of formality and wagers. Unless Partridge had decided to take the risk of making a big wager, it was easily predictable that he was going to become the champ for the night. Partridge was able to collect $20,100 by the time the Alex Trebek stage was bathed in red light for the final round while the other two contestants had to settle with four-digit figures, creating a major gap between all of them.
The Final Jeopardy clue was from the category of 'Opera Source Material', asking: "Henri Murger, who was broke and living in a freezing attic apartment in Paris, wrote the source material for this 1896 opera." All three contestants got the correct answer which was 'La Boheme'. Both Sisson and Muhler made small wagers, basically contesting for the second position to win the $2,000 prize, and the latter was successful in that. Funnily enough, Partridge made no wager and decided to settle for his better than good enough prize of $20,100.
