2nd chance for Orem priest
'Millionaire' appearance wins him $32K
After being booted from the television game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Sciumbato, who is a priest at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, was left with a measly $1,000 of prize money — and doubts about his answer.
On Wednesday and Thursday, however, a split broadcast of Sciumbato's second appearance on the game show showed him raking in $32,000 with renewed confidence.
"There was a part of me that was excited, but then you get that pit feeling in the stomach again," Sciumbato said while watching the show Thursday. "Because as easy and fun as it looks on TV, it's terribly frightening."
"You begin to second guess yourself. All the sudden, you feel like everything you've known for your whole life — it's just gone in an instant."
In April 2003, Sciumbato, who at the time was serving at an Ogden parish, only made it to the $8,000-level question.
The question at that level — "Which of these ecological regions often has dense thickets of evergreen trees and shrubs?" — ended Sciumbato's winning streak.
His answer: Sierra.
But both answers are right. And Reed Irvine, founder of the watchdog group Accuracy in Media, who was watching at his Maryland home, saw the Orem priest wrongly get dismissed.
After suffering a heart attack in 2003, Irvine had reduced his work hours, which gave him a free afternoon and free time to watch the game show.
But his dedication to truth remained, said his son, Don Irvine.
"He noticed this mistake and being the kind of guy that he is, he's still into accuracy," Don Irvine said. "He felt there was some injustice there."
Reed Irvine, born and raised in Utah, contacted the show's producers and informed them of the mistake.
Trying to make good, they invited Sciumbato back in November to pick up where he had left off last year.
That left him with only two "lifelines" remaining. One of his lifelines, which gives the contestant a chance to call a friend to help answer a question, was given back to him because he used one to call a friend to answer the troublesome question about evergreens.
On Thursday's pre-taped show, Sciumbato used his last lifeline to consult with his bishop to determine what wine is named after a French town.
Despite the advice he received, Sciumbato went with his instincts and chose chardonnay over beaujolais.
That answer was wrong and ended Sciumbato's second chance to be a millionaire.
"Don't ask me about wine. I don't drink wine," Sciumbato said. "Altar wine that we use in church? OK. Wine from France? No idea."
But Sciumbato said that the $32,000 is four times what he makes a year and will all be donated to St. Francis of Assisi to help build a new $3 million facility.
"Right now we meet in a gymnasium," he said. "(But) we continue to do our fund-raising and we do what we can to raise money. Somehow, someway, we'll get what we need to build."
Contributing: Marin Decker
E-mail: lwarner@desnews.com
You can be the first to comment on this story.