Gainesville native continues winning streak on ‘Jeopardy!’

Kirstin Cutts will never forget the nickname Kobe Bryant was given during the Beijing Olympic.

Peter Pan.

When put to the test on national TV Wednesday, as a contestant on trivia show “Jeopardy!”, the 28-year-old drew a blank.

While upset at her lapse in knowledge, the Eastside High School graduate still won, making it her second night in a row.

Cutts, who won $11,001 on Wednesday’s show and $14,601 on Thursday’s, will continue her winning streak tonight.

Asked how she prepared, Cutts pointed to long nights playing bar trivia with her professors and friends at the University of Texas. Then she took an online “Jeopardy!” test in January 2016.

“I didn’t expect anything to come of it,” the second-year graduate student said.

But in October, she got a call from the show’s producers.

“I didn’t practice every day, otherwise I wouldn’t have passed my classes,” she said.

Cutts said she doesn’t have time to bask in her victories; instead, she’s making sure her classwork gets done.

Most of her winnings will be stashed away in a savings account, she said, but she’ll put aside some money for a few nice dinners, charity and a vacation.

Her mother, Jana Middleton, has watched her daughter on the show every night with her neighbor in Gainesville. Cutts told her parents she had made it onto the show, but she wasn’t allowed to tell them she won.

“We were on the edge of our seats when it got close,” Middleton said.

When Cutts was young, the family watched “Jeopardy!” together at night.

“She’s always been someone interested in learning and comfortable with finding answers,” she said.

Middleton said her daughter valued her education while living in Gainesville.

“I think she was fortunate to have good teachers here and folks who encouraged her to learn as much as she could,” she said.

Kirstin Cutts