Tonight on TV, his final answer will be revealed

  By Dani Dodge
  of the Mail Tribune

  When Medford's Steve Kummer watches "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" tonight, he'll know all the answers.

  He'll even know the winner.

  Kummer's not psychic. He's smart. He's lucky. He's one of today's 10 contestants on the popular prime time show.

  "There was big-time excitement at first when they called, then there was no sleep," the 43-year-old US West network technician said Saturday.

  But is he a millionaire? He won't say. Confidentiality agreement, he explains apologetically. Even his friends, who will gather at his north Medford tract home tonight for the 9 p.m. broadcast (KDRV-TV, Ch. 12), won't know until Regis Philbin presents a check.

  Hosted by Philbin, of "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee" fame, the show began in August 1999 as a way to boost network ratings. Since then it has become a thrice-weekly event that's made the words "Is that your final answer?" the ad nauseam phrase of the year.

  So far in 65 broadcasts, only two people have won the $1 million top prize. But the show has doled out $11,621,000 to winners, according to Pat Preblick, the show's publicist. And that's not including the airfare and hotel accommodations for the 10 contestants every show.

  People from across the nation qualify for the quiz show by calling an 800 number and answering three questions. Each day the phone lines are open about 240,000 people call. Only 6 percent of those get the correct answers, Preblick said. That 6 percent are placed in a computerized random drawing to advance to a 40-person telephone playoff game.

  In the playoff game, the people who answer the questions correctly and the most quickly become the 10 television contestants.

  "It's all done blind," Preblick said. "It's based on skill and accuracy; we don't know the gender or age or anything."

  The 10 win a free trip to New York City for two that includes a limousine pickup at the airport and a stay in a Manhattan hotel.

  Kummer is the first person from Medford and only the fourth from the state to make it onto the show.

  Kummer's trip to the Big Apple, though, wasn't just a trivial pursuit on his part. He and his wife, Annie, have been dialing the 800 number since August. Kummer made it past the first round 10 times; his wife twice that.

  "We're both big into trivia," Kummer said. "We make up our own trivia games and play all the time. We've both been in the weeklong National Trivia Bowl."

  But February was the first time they were picked in the random drawing. Kummer was watching basketball when the call came.

  The show spokesman said Kummer should call back on Feb. 17 to play the next telephone round. Even though Kummer was at a union management training event in Seattle that day, he called from his hotel room at noon.

  Four hours later, the show called back and told him where to get his plane tickets. His family was thrilled. His 6-year-old daughter, Alex Natasha, began shrieking. His 16-year-old son, Justin Devine, a brain bowl participant himself, also began yelling and waving the phone around.

  But all this luck didn't mean Kummer's wife was going to New York. When show contestants are stumped by a question, they can call a friend to help them out. Kummer took one of his buddies to see the Statue of Liberty, while Annie Kummer stayed home to be one of his "life-lines."

  "She's still a lot better trivia player than I am," he said.

  She agreed it would be best.

  "I thought, `What if it's an Oscar question or something I know and I'm in the audience and can't help?"' Annie Kummer said.

  The days leading up to the taping were nerve-racking for the couple.

  "Your mind doesn't quit racing," Annie Kummer said.

  The day he was going to leave, Kummer got up before dawn to take a shower so he could make the 5:51 a.m. flight. His wife followed him into the bathroom firing trivia questions as he rinsed his hair.

  The day of the taping, Kummer's father had a dream about a question Kummer would be asked for the final round -- something about the capital of North Dakota -- and called the family at 4:30 a.m. to tell them the answer. Annie also called Kummer at his hotel in the wee hours of the morning.

  "I said, `Michael Abram stabbed George Harrison,"' she said. "I'd just seen that and called him quick because I thought it could maybe save him a life-line.

  "We were getting real strange. We were consumed by this."

  And it wasn't just knowledge Kummer had to worry about. Once he got to New York, the show's producer said Kummer couldn't wear the shirts he'd brought for the taping. They had tiny logos on the left breast. He was pointed to an Eddie Bauer store a block down the street where he bought two new polo shirts that were logo-free.

  When Kummer got to the ABC studios the morning of the taping, the staff took away all reading material he and his friend had brought. The staff even escorted the contestants and their guests to the bathroom when nature called: "to protect the integrity of the show," Kummer said.

  The show starts with a question to all 10 contestants. Whoever answers correctly and most quickly gets to go to the "hot seat," where there's a chance for the big bucks.

  "The killer part was having the fastest finger and getting onto the hot seat," Kummer said. "It looks easier on TV than when you get there."

  Seventy-five percent of contestants only get to wave at the national audience -- because they never make it past that first cut, Kummer said.

  But Saturday, Kummer wouldn't elaborate on the game any further. He doesn't want to reveal any secrets, such as whether he's Medford's newest millionaire. (The Mail Tribune didn't spot a new Ferrari in the driveway or a "For Sale" sign on the house.)

  The family hopes, though, this won't be the last time they shake Philbin's hand. Annie Kummer continues to call the 800 number.

  "We would be the first married couple to be on the show," she said.

  But their obsession with the show hasn't reduced them to using the show's catch phrase, "Is that your final answer?" Kummer's heard it probably three dozen times from friends and acquaintances.

  It's banned in their home.