Millions watch it every night and a large number of those folks can only dream about participating. Most never even get close.

    We’re talking about the quiz show “Jeopardy.” Yeah, that one, hosted by Alex Trebek for a little more than a quarter-century.

    Well, River Cities residents, crank up your tape machines or block off your calendars because one of our own made it all the way through the gauntlet and recently returned from the taping in California.

    Virginia Gardens resident Jaime Alayon, a 2010 graduate of Miami Springs Senior High School and current student at George Washington University near the nation’s capital, was one of just 15 college students selected to participate in “Jeopardy’s” College Championship.

    The quarterfinals will be televised starting next Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. and conclude on Tuesday, Feb. 14. Alayon, who traveled with his mother Velia and father Frank to California the first week of January to tape the shows, will make his debut in the second quarterfinal round, Thursday, Feb. 2.

    Three more quarterfinals will run Feb. 3, 6 and 7, followed by three semifinal rounds Feb. 8-10. Three students will emerge from that pack and a two-part final will air on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 13-14, with a $100,000 pot of gold awaiting the winner.

    So how did he do? Ah yes, in words made famous by ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso, “Not so fast, my friend.”

    Part of the deal for all participants are signatures and affidavits swearing them to secrecy at the risk of forfeiting any winnings, and Alayon is no exception.

    “Can’t say a thing to anybody,” Alayon said last week from his dorm room at GWU. “Heck, my own roommate has been bugging me every day driving me crazy. ‘C’mon, give it up, give it up,’ he says and all I do is shake my head and say sorry, ‘Watch the show.’ ”

    Not only was Alayon a Golden Hawks graduate, he spent three years as a member of the award-winning Mu Alpha Theta math team at Springs.

    So where did it all start? Where did Alayon get the crazy idea that he could actually make it on to “Jeopardy”?

    “I think it was about a year ago when I was watching the show and they mentioned something about an online test to find contestants,” said Alayon. “I figured I had nothing to lose, so I just jumped on and gave it a shot.”

    Alayon didn’t give it another thought after that. But in May, his phone rang. It was a representative of the show informing him that he had been one of 300 selected out of 12,000 original entries to participate in regional live auditions in June.

    “As it turned out, one of the four cities was right here in D.C., so it was really convenient for me,” said Alayon. “I was one of about 40 people there and they did it in three different parts. First was an actual interview process followed by a mock version of the show with buzzing in and everything and finally a written test. I thought I did OK and they told me I did well, but again I really didn’t give it another thought after that.”