Davis takes home Showcase Showdown
”
Cassandra Davis, come on down, you’re the next contestant on The
Price is Right.
”
The 24-year-old former Hollister resident and 2002 San Benito
High School graduate was a big winner in the long-running game show
in an episode that aired this week.
Davis takes home Showcase Showdown
“Cassandra Davis, come on down, you’re the next contestant on The Price is Right.”
The 24-year-old former Hollister resident and 2002 San Benito High School graduate was a big winner in the long-running game show in an episode that aired this week.
Davis, who works as a waitress in Las Vegas, won the Showcase Showdown by not over-bidding on a prize package worth nearly $40,000. She won a flat screen television, a Nintendo Wii video game system with 12 games, a six-day trip for two to Paris and a 2008 Chevrolet Equinox.
“I used to watch the show with my grandma in the morning,” recalled Davis, who previously attended a taping of the show in 2008 to celebrate her mom Tammy’s birthday. This time, she went with her sister, Jona, who was celebrating her 28th birthday, their mom, and their aunt to the Nov. 4 taping.
The group attended two show tapings that day, and Davis was the first contestant called during the second show. Wearing a shirt that read, “It’s my sister’s 28th birthday and she decided to spend it with Drew,” she recalls being “really surprised” when she was summoned to the stage.
Much of what happened after that is a blur, Davis said.
“I felt like I was going to take [Carey] down” when she ran onto the stage and gave the host a hug after making the low bid on a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. “All of it happened so fast, I hardly remember any of it.”
Davis’ mom said Cassie, a former softball player at SBHS and at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, had other plans if she made it to the stage.
“She had always said she was going to do a spider monkey jump on Drew,” Tammy Davis said. “She’s tall, skinny and lanky. She kinda chickened out at the last minute and just jumped up and hugged him.”
Cassie, who describes herself as “really shy, especially in front of big groups,” nevertheless was on stage “jumping around and screaming – at least I think I was.”
The next game provided Davis with an opportunity to bid on a sailboat. As Davis looked to her family in the audience for help with the bid, they were yelling “81! 81!” as in $8,100, but she thought they were telling her to bid $81,000. She didn’t win that prize, but she did earn good-natured ribbing from Carey.
“At the commercial break, Drew teased her by saying ‘How many $81,000 sailboats have you been on?'” Tammy Davis said, adding that when the host asked who helped her with that bid she said, “My mom.” Carey then came into the audience and poked fun at Tammy for the bid.
“I explained that we thought it was a four-digit number and could we have a do-over,” Tammy Davis said. “Then I had to tell him how adorable he is.”
Despite overbidding on the sailboat, Cassie Davis earned the right to spin a wheel along with other contestants for the opportunity to advance to the Showcase Showdown at the end of the program, where the big prize packages are offered. The person who got closest to $1 in one or two spins without going over would advance.
Davis tied with another contestant on the first spin then got closer to $1 on her second spin to continue.
“We were all shaking,” Tammy Davis said. “Poor Cassie was chewing off her fingers while the show continued. It was nerve-racking and exciting all at the same time.”
Cassie Davis said she was surprised that the man she faced off against in the Showcase Showdown chose to bid on the first prize package, which included an indoor sauna, an entertainment center and a living room set.
When the second prize package was revealed, “I was really hoping I’d win,” Davis said.
As each contestant bid – Davis bid $31,000 for the $39,000 prize package – they were told that the person who came closest to the actual retail price of the prizes without going over would win those items.
When Carey told Davis’ opponent that he had over-bid by $2,000 and Davis had not gone over on her bid, she was the winner. It just didn’t sink in automatically.
“I had no idea that I had won,” Davis recalled. “I thought William [the other contestant] bid under. I was looking at him like, ‘You won!’ and he said, ‘No, you did,’ I then went to the car and I don’t remember what happened after that.”
Davis had already received the television before the episode aired on Jan. 14 and she plans to pick up the car on Monday the 19th in Los Angeles.
As for the trip to Paris, Davis plans to take her mom there this summer.
