Not many people know that Mr. Ken Sarajian, a PV history teacher, is also a game show enthusiast.

Sarajian teaches U.S. I and II history classes. As bright as his personality is, his past is even more interesting.

Sarajian has participated in four different game shows: “Win, Lose, or Draw,” “Jeopardy!”, “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire,” and “Cash Cab.”

He won on “Win, Lose, or Draw” and “Cash Cab.” However, Sarajian said that he “crashed and burned as one of the great failures of game show history” on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” He also has a clip of his time on “Jeopardy!” which he only shows to his students.

According to Sarajian, he was actually rejected twice for poor behavior while applying for “Jeopardy!”

Sarajian said that he has learned a lot from participating in these four game shows. 

Even though he didn’t win on “Jeopardy!”, he received one of the first Nintendo consoles, grapefruit juice, and underwear as prizes.

Sarajian explained, “When I walked out onto Jeopardy and I saw that the categories were middle names, South American fruits and vegetables, and mythology, I knew I was in trouble because in eighth grade, I didn’t pay any attention to mythology. That was what killed me in ‘Jeopardy!’ and ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.’”

If you’re curious about the details of his appearance, including the actual questions and who got which ones right, the fan website “J-Archive” has a blow-by-blow of his appearance on Monday, March 19, 1990, as well as every other “Jeopardy!” episode ever made.

Sarajian’s only game show appearance with a team was on “Cash Cab.” He was working with his brother-in-law, his nephew, and his goddaughter.

When speaking about how he ended up as a history teacher, he said, “I never really decided, it just happened.”

Many years ago, Sarajian was asked to be a substitute for a teacher who had fallen ill; this lasted for ten months. A year later, he was asked again to substitute for a woman on maternity leave, at a different school. During this time, he met someone who had associations with a teacher at PV, which led him to his current job.

His love for comparing history to modern events and his hatred for math also sparked his interest in his current career.

“I like a lot of useless information. I like reading – before there were laptops, there were encyclopedias. My father put all of the encyclopedias in the house on one wall of bookshelves. I just read a lot, and then when I started seeing game shows, I would sit there and play from the audience. And every night, in Grad School, I would have a roommate who would play along with me. We would see who would have to do the dishes. I rarely did the dishes,” said Sarajian.

Outside of school, he enjoys spending time with his family, taking part in political activism, and wrestling. But Sarajian’s biggest interests are history and game shows.

Taylor Bender, a junior who had Sarajian as a teacher last year, said, “Mr. Sarajian is funny, and uses humor to make his lessons more interesting. I think what made him such a good teacher is that he was really good at emphasizing certain thoughts and themes of what we were learning.”