Local teacher spins wheel of fortune

Who is R*ch*l G*rd*n?

Oops -- looks like we need to buy some vowels, Vanna. Give us an A, an E, maybe an O.

We got it! It’s Rachel Gordon, a local teacher who flung around a lot of vowels and consonants herself recently as a contestant on the popular TV game show “Wheel of Fortune.”

The show will air at 6 p.m. Jan. 28,  .on KKTV Channel 11, and the Colorado Springs woman is sworn to secrecy about the outcome.

But here’s what she can say: She’s a major fan who has watched it for years and even has a game on her cell phone.

 “I can’t remember when I didn’t watch it,” said Gordon, 26, who teaches first grade at Stetson Hills Elementary School. “That’s how I learned to spell.”

Gordon got to be on the show in Los Angeles by winning a tryout in Cripple Creek and then another in Colorado Springs.

She says playing the game in front of a television audience was almost as easy as playing it at home in front of the TV.

“I thought it would be harder with the pressure, but by the time I went on, they made you feel at home and it’s a small set so it wasn’t overwhelming.”

When she got back she played the game with her students. Since they didn’t have a wheel, they played a version of hangman. It fit right in with her lesson plans.“I spend a lot of time teaching them to spell,” she said.

The mystery of the outcome has her colleagues intrigued.

“It is just killing us because she won’t tell us what happened, “ said Jerre Nakagawa, a Stetson Hills staff member. So they’re planning a party to watch it with her at Fox and Hound Pub and Grill, which has promised to put it on a big screen.

While Gordon can’t talk about the outcome, she gushed a bit about the famous letter-turner and co-host, Vanna White.

“ She wore six beautiful outfits.”