Dr. Joshua WeikertNot enough room to describe Dr. Weikert in the title block. This man has done it all, or almost. Like college degrees in international relations, political science, and foreign language studies; Army interrogator and translator; educator, scholarship founder, brewmaster and a Jeopardy! champion.
And he brought all that enthusiasm to our club for a presentation last week.
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Dr. Weikert talked about his personal path to the present from a small town in Pa. followed by being raised in Norristown and ,after attending Valley Forge Military Academy, joining the Army where he specialized in interrogation and translating. His education in International Relations, Political Science, political philosophy led to assignments in the Army's program to restore civil governments in areas that have endured conflict. Joshua stressed that this is critical in today's world where the next conflict could well be big and necessitate programs that enable the reestablish good, solid governments which would prevent continual fights with insurgents.
Dr. Weikert has great love for teaching and has had several teaching positions in colleges including the Chair of Civic Engagement at Immaculate University. He later took his political science background to the Pa. House of Representatives where he served for several years.
He found time to develop a craft beer business and write for a Craft Beer magazine. Joshua also created and has maintained a scholarship fund that helps the children of veterans attain a college education.
But he is most famous for being a very successful contestant on JEOPARDY! He has been a big fan of the show since the age of 6, and took the test for potential contestants many times. He had several close chances for selection that fell through, but finally got his chance a year ago. He was tested a few more times then, after an audition, was told he had made it into potential contestants pool, along with 3000 other people. Four months later he got the call to come in for the show. Joshua described the prep work for the show: practice, getting used to the set, and rehearsal. The set is intimidating.
He gave in-depth description of the intense pressure and constant focus needed to compete. He won 5 games in a row and came back for a second day of filming, after buying some new clothes for the show.
He was very successful with a nice string of victories and stated that the most important advantage one can get is to be presented with a large portion of questions (really answers) that you know for sure.
Thanks for the very entertaining program, Dr. Weikert.