Ronnie Motsinger wants to be a millionaire, and that’s his final answer.
Motsinger will vie for an appearance on the television show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” in less than two weeks. “I’ve watched that show every chance I’ve got ever since it first came out,” he said.
The 50-year-old Greenwood carpenter says he has a stack of encyclopedias beside his computer and would spend “every second I get between now and then” reading them.
“All my friends think I’m putting them on about it,” he said.
“Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” is a game show that offers cash prizes for answering successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. According to BBC News, the show is the most popular television franchise of all time, having aired in more than 100 countries worldwide.
When watching the show recently, Motsinger finally gave in to the urge to try and appear. He went to the show’s Web site, signed up and is scheduled to take an “exam” May 20 inside the ABC Building in New York City. If he does well enough, he’ll make an appearance on the show.
Motsinger said he and his wife, Wanda, play the board game version regularly, and he routinely answers the $125,000 and $250,000 questions with ease.
“Just the other night she read a question off a card, ‘How long does it take the light from the sun to reach Earth?’” he said. “I told her ‘eight seconds’ before she even gave me my choices.”
Motsinger – who prefers the show’s current host, Meredith Vieira, to its previous, Regis Philbin – has always claimed that if he ever got the chance to compete on the show, he would walk away with $16,000 or $25,000, “easily.”
“All I watch on TV is the History Channel, or stuff about NASA,” he said laughing, adding that not many people know that seven minutes after take-off a space shuttle is traveling 17,500 mph.
“And when it re-enters the atmosphere, it’s traveling just as fast.”
Though he admits he’s not as sharp on his Shakespeare as he should be, Motsinger said, “everybody says I’m a trivia buff.”
He will make the drive north a few days before his May 20 appointment. Motsinger plans to stay with a family member in Orange, Conn., which is roughly 100 miles from New York City.
