Senior to Star on Game Show

Academic honors didn't compare to spinning the wheel on "Wheel of Fortune" for Suzanne M. Besu '01, whose appearance on the show will air tonight on channel 7.

Besu said her mother, who was an audience member, "cried more than when I got into Harvard."

All contestants did well on the show, Besu said, but none was a match for Besu, who emerged victorious. She would not reveal the sum she amassed, and said "I'd rather have you be in suspense."

Besu, a Miami native and special concentrator in Health Policy, went to the "Wheel of Fortune" studios in Los Angeles on Nov. 2 for the taping of the show, which airs at 7 p.m.

The show recruited Besu after she and her sister tried out in a 'contestant search' in a Miami mall this summer.

The audition consisted of a mock Wheel of Fortune session, a written test and an interview. Besu learned that she would be featured in the show in July. (According to Besu, her sister was very upset not to have made it.)

Besu said the staff members who conducted the audition seemed impressed by her Harvard connection. Pat, the show's host, made use of her credentials in his introduction.

"He said, 'I hear it's a pretty good school,'" Besu said. "I felt like a dork, but I didn't want to say 'yes' and come off as a snob."

Fellow contestants got a different impression. "The guy next to me was so nervous, he said, 'You go to Harvard? You only tell me this now!?!'' Besu said.

She and a big group of friends plan to watch the show tonight in a common room in Currier House, with which she is affiliated.

"I've been calling everyone I've known since elementary school" to encourage them to watch the show," Besu said. She also has many family members taping the episode.

Besu said she remembers watching the show as a little girl with her grandfather. "It's basically how she learned English," she quipped, "because we are originally Cuban."

Friends of the contestant described the experience as fitting.

"Suzy is definitely 'Wheel of Fortune' material," said Jamil K. Shamasdin '01, "She's very much a people person, and very likeable."

Besu said she did not become nervous until the cameras started filming. She said her nervousness made her unusually calm.

"I'm not at all myself. I'm usually much more crazy, I was really calm and composed," she said.

Besu attributes at least part of her victory to the nature of the questions. One of the puzzle answers was Concord, N.H., a town in which Besu once got lost while driving.

Besu says she especially enjoyed "chatting with Pat and Vanna" during the breaks between sessions.

"They are both nice. But they look really different up close. Vanna is probably in her forties, but she still looks great," Besu said.

She said she and the other contestants got along well.

"You get to know the other contestants well, you bonded over the course of the day. I was wishing everyone good luck," she said.

Besu said she is now approaching her next challenge: application to law schools.

"I can't decide whether I should include it on the application," she said.