Spring break winner

 

by Janna Farley, Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D.

When Joe Wiltse and a few of his friends from the University of Sioux Falls decided to take a spring break trip to the West Coast, their classmate Taylor Calmus, who’s spending the semester studying in Los Angeles, said, “C’mon down!”

Little did Wiltse know that he’d be hearing those exact same words during his vacation.

Wiltse, a 20-year-old USF sophomore from Lisbon, made it onto “The Price is Right.” His appearance on the show aired Monday, April 21.

“We thought it’d be a blast to do while we were out there,” Wiltse says. “We didn’t think any of us would get on it.”

But Wiltse did. And the T-shirt he wore proclaiming Sioux Falls to be the greatest city in the world may have been his ticket on stage, he says.

Before the show starts filming, Wiltse says, producers spend a few hours interviewing everyone in the audience. “They basically just ask everyone where they’re from. So when they got to me, I told them, ‘Well, the greatest city in the world, of course - Sioux Falls. Duh.’ “

The producer wasn’t convinced. “He said, ‘I’m pretty sure a lot of America would disagree with that.’ But it got us to talking a little more,” Wiltse says. “I told him I was a student, where I worked. We kind of joked around about a few different things.”

Even though he connected with the producer, Wiltse still was surprised to be called on stage.

“It’s so loud in the place that you actually don’t even hear your name being called,” he says. “They hold up name cards with your name written on it.”

Wiltse made it from contestant’s row to play a game on stage with a little help from the audience and his own strategic thinking.

“He kept looking at us to give him suggestions on prices, but it’s so loud in there and my adrenaline was so high, I really couldn’t think that straight,” says Calmus.

Wiltse left the stage a winner but had to sign a contract saying he wouldn’t talk about his prizes until after the show aired.

“When it was all happening, it felt very surreal,” Calmus says. “Then after he won, and we all got on stage, it was even crazier. We were all running around on camera not knowing what to do. There were continuous high-fives and hug attempts, but we were all in such a daze most of them didn’t get reciprocated. It will be funny to see how Joe and the rest of us look in our dazed confusion of excitement.”

While host Drew Carey gives the show a little bit of a different feel than in the Bob Barker era, it’s still the same program Wiltse grew up watching.

“They have two different personalities, but the show still has the whole ‘Price is Right’ atmosphere going on,” he says. “It’s really cool. And I don’t know what they call the Barker Beauties anymore, but I hugged every one of them, though.”

On Monday, Wiltse will watch the show live with his computer solutions class at USF.

“The teacher is going to put it on projector,” he says. “That’s just for the class, but there will be a lot of different parties going on in the dorms with people watching it. We’re going to have a big party that night to watch a recording of it.”

Joe is the son of Jon and Kathy Wiltse, Lisbon.  Wiltse won two snowmobiles, a living room set, a player piano, and a set of chairs.