She was first to “come on down” and even gave Drew Carey a piece of ancient turtle poop-but did she get the price right?

City College’s Geology Club went to The Price is Right game show Nov. 11, and member Eiko Kitao competed on stage.

According to Kitao, the show required contestants to be enthusiastic, and she was chosen out of a crowd of more than 300 people.

“I was being a total spaz,” she said. “That was the reason I got picked.”

She had to sign a disclosure agreement for confidentiality that doesn’t allow her to talk about what happened until the show airs on Jan. 21 of next year, she said.

Kitao was the closest bidder in the very first round, and went on up to meet the host, Drew Carey. While onstage, she gave him a gift he thought was interesting.

“I brought him a 40-million-year-old turtle poop, ’cause we’re from the geology club,” she said.

Club President Sam Wachtor, who did not sign a confidentiality agreement, was still reluctant to give away of the details, worried he would ruin the surprise.

He couldn’t remember the name of the game she played, but it was difficult, and the potential prize was a new car, he said.

“They have nine different numbers on the board and you have to put together the price of the car,” he said. “They give you the middle number and you have to get the first two and the last two.”

Eiko said the experience was good, even though the game was hard.

“We were wearing our geology shirts,” she said. “I was able to represent us, and we said who we were, so it was really neat.”
The club was still excited when it arrived back to campus, members wearing their blue and yellow t-shirts with a caricature of Drew Carey printed on the front.

The shirts were made for the trip by Lindsey Lamb, the club’s “unofficial chairman of the tee shirt design committee,” Wachtor said.

According to him, they are a fun club that goes on one big trip each semester, but he wanted to emphasize they don’t usually get to do things like this. Going on educational field trips every other week to places like Vandenburg Air Force Base to study rocks is more their type of field trip.

The Geology Department Chair Robert Gray described the club as an integrated system of faculty and students all getting involved and working together, and that social activities like this are positive for the group.

“The good thing I like is the Geology Club does some social events other than the normal field trips doing real geology,” he said.

There aren’t many geology majors so the group is tight knit, but anyone can “come on down” to join club meetings, Wachtor said.