NBC’s Chuck Todd Wins "Jeopardy!" for Local Charity

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek. Photograph courtesy of Jeopardy Productions.

A DC-based charity, Samaritan Inns, is lovin’ NBC’s
Chuck Todd a whole lot today. On Thursday’s night’s episode of
Jeopardy! he beat out comedian
Lewis Black and
Chicago Tribune columnist
Clarence Page to win $50,000 for the charity,
which works with homeless and addicted men and women to provide recovery
services and housing.
Todd appeared on the fourth day of the popular game show’s
Power Players Week, which was taped last month at DAR Constitution
Hall.

“Obviously we’re very thrilled,” says
Larry Huff, president of Samaritan Inns. “I’ve
watched all week, and to this point we’re the only local charity
identified by contestants.
The others were national charities or local to New York City.”
Huff says they are grateful Todd selected them. “I got a chance
to chat with him the day before the taping, and he was clearly
very, very motivated to win this thing for us.”

Tonight is the last show of the series, and it will be a competition between CNN anchor
Anderson Cooper,
New York Times columnist
Thomas L. Friedman, and
Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News.

Previous winners were former White House press secretary
Robert Gibbs, who on Monday evening beat CNN’s
Lizzie O’Leary and MSNBC’s
Chris Matthews; CNBC’s
David Faber, who triumphed over basketball superstar
Kareem Abdul Jabbar and another former White House press secretary,
Dana Perino, on Tuesday; and
Chris Wallace, who on Wednesday defeated health-show host
Dr. Oz and
Katty Kay of the BBC.

This was
Jeopardy!’s third Power Players Week in Washington. The last one was eight years ago. When we talked with host
Alex Trebek earlier this
year,

he said coming to Washington at this time “seemed natural”
because of the presidential election.

Carol Ross Joynt