Local woman wins big on The Price Is Right
Like many people in America, “come on down” is a phrase that Maggie Hagan grew up with.
But, like most Americans, she never thought the phrasing would include her name.
Better yet, she never thought she’d win the Showcase Showdown on the Price Is Right, the iconic American gameshow that is arguably this country’s most successful and perhaps most famous.
But check out the March 12 showing of the gameshow on cbs.com and you’ll see Maggie do both. (And if you do, you’ll see her referred to as “Margaret” throughout because she said the show must go by legal names, though she’s gone by “Maggie” her whole life.)
It’s the culmination of a dream—but probably more of a dream for her “Nan,” Ann Beckham, her great-aunt who seemed like a grandmother to her.
Beckham took care of Maggie growing up on any day her parents, Daryl and Jill Hagan, needed help, which was often because they both worked. And during those days of old, there was one activity Maggie and her Nan, who has now passed away, partook in religiously: They watched The Price Is Right.
“She was the real fan,” Maggie, 30, said. “I just loved it because she loved it.”
Beckham loved it so much that on one of her birthdays, her family threw a Price Is Right-themed party. Maggie said they even built a Plinko board for her.
So, when Maggie got invited to accompany her father, a former principal of Holy Name School and now the director of the Institute for the Transformation of Catholic Education at the Catholic University of America, on a two-day business trip to Los Angeles, she said getting a ticket to the gameshow was a top priority. A month before the trip, Maggie went to the TPIR website and got hers.
She said the first day of the trip, she and her father toured some studios, and the second day—the day of the TPIR showing she had a ticket to—she was on her own and did some sightseeing. As the time for the taping drew near, Maggie got stuck in traffic and called her mother, Jill, telling her maybe she wouldn’t go to the show. Her mother’s response: No, you got to go. Nan would want you there.
At the Jan. 22 taping, Maggie was one of the first four called down to be a contestant. She was “excited and overwhelmed” as she was first called down to be a contestant and said she couldn’t hear her name called because of how loud the studio was. There was a group of “Ryans”—people named Ryan who gathered from all over—in front of her and they were a bit raucous. She only knew she’d been called because her name was held up on a big cue card, she said.
As the show wore on, Maggie didn’t move from her contestant spot. All the while, her anxiety grew, causing her to forget some parts of the show, she said.
It was made worse by a fear that her time was running out. As a longtime fan who’d watched hundreds of episodes, she said she was not always so forgiving to those who were called up at the very beginning of the show and never won a bid. As the last bid came around, she was on the verge of becoming one of them.
But on the last bid, she won, guessing $701—the old $1 more than another contestant’s bid—on a chaise lounge and Kyndle priced at $770 and proceeded on to the pricing game, where Maggie had the chance to win either an SUV or a dishwasher. She got the dishwasher.
A cliffhanger moment of the show was when Maggie spun the wheel. The winner of the wheel spin is the contestant who gets closest to $1.00, or $1.00 exactly. Leading off, Maggie’s first try landed on .45. On her second spin, the needle slowed to a crawl at .50 and was just a breath from clicking over to .85, which would have busted her.
But it stuck. Her family thinks some Heavenly intervention kept the needle on .50.
“Everyone in my family is convinced (my Nan) stopped it,” she said.
Her .95 spin total couldn’t be beat, and Maggie continued to the Showcase Showdown. Bidding on a camera and accessories, a camping trailer and a South American trip to Brazil and Argentina, Maggie first guessed $2,500, though $25,000 was in her head, and she quickly changed it to the latter.
The total price was $27,921, a difference of $2,921, besting her opponent’s difference of $7,446.
Her total winnings on the day were $29,520, she said.
During the end-of-show celebration, Maggie, who’d gone to the taping alone, was greeted by the friend she’d made earlier in the day as she stood in line to get into the show, Dalen, who had also gone through pre-taping interviews with her and others in a small group.
She said winnings aren’t delivered until after the show airs, and there’s a strict non-disclosure so that if she’d leaked her fortune before the show aired, her prizes would have been withheld. Additionally, she said the show allows for up to a year to take trips, and she plans to go in the December/January timeframe. She’ll take her parents, though one will need to buy tickets because the prize was a trip for two.
In the end, she said the studio during the taping was just a positive experience, everyone cheering on each other with no negativity, even when a contestant lost. Host Drew Carey, also a comedian, former host of “Whose Line is it Anyway” and star of the “Drew Carey Show,” was “super nice” and came out into the crowd to chat with audience members during breaks, she said. All the producers, she said, were just so kind.
“I think they understand this can be overwhelming,” Maggie said.