Molly Tumanic

The crowd was yelling and screaming so loud she couldn’t hear herself think, yet alone hear someone calling her name.

Luckily for freshman Becky Larsen, a member of The Price is Right stage crew held up a sign with her name on it. Without a moment’s delay after seeing the sign, Larsen was on her way down to Contestant’s Row before she even heard Rod Roddy say her name.

“I just flapped my arms like a girl,” she said, explaining that she’s the athletic type so flapping her arms is not something she usually does.

Larsen was the third person to be called down to Contestant’s Row at the opening of the taping of the Aug. 19 show, she said.

“It’s always a surprise – even though we figured it (might happen),” Larsen said.

After the interview Larsen had no idea that she would be picked, but said she and Kelly McConnell, a sophomore at UW-La Crosse, figured maybe one of them would get the invite to “Come on down.” The members of the audience didn’t appear to be as excited to be there as Larsen and McConnell were, Larsen said.

Her excitement changed once she reached the row.

“I was trying to calm myself down because I was spazzing out,” Larsen said. The only thing going through her mind was to make sure her hair looked OK and to act normal because the entire country would see her on the television, she said.

When it came to bidding on a prize, she turned to McConnell and a family of four seated near McConnell, Larsen said.

“You hear so many people, it’s overwhelming,” she said. “You have to listen to what they say and make your own bid.”

McConnell said she was no help when it came to giving Larsen suggestions for bids.

“I just told her what people around me were saying. Or even worse, just shrugged my shoulders,” she said. “It was funny, I was being crazy. I couldn’t think at all – Becky was much more calm than I was.”

After two incorrect bids, Larsen’s luck changed when she bid $1,550 for a dresser. The actual retail price was $1,624.

Host Bob Barker introduced the game she would play – Safe Cracker – and showed her what she could win, which wasn’t what she expected. Behind the safe door was a copper bed and mattress and a three-piece set of luggage. Everyone goes to the show hoping to win a car, Larsen said.

“I wasn’t disappointed,” she said. “I wanted something exciting, like a T.V. or jet ski.”

Larsen had to pick the correct price of the luggage by turning three dials with the numbers five, seven and zero. Larsen had a general idea because she recently began looking for luggage, she said.

“I put it (the first dial) on five, the crowd yelled ‘No,’ ” she said. She turned it to seven, thinking maybe prices are higher in Los Angeles.

She decided on $750, spun the handle and the door opened. She won! She was so excited that she kissed Bob Barker a couple of times on the cheek.

She isn’t sure what she will do with the prizes when she gets them, Larsen said.

“These prizes would be really good in about 10 years when I have my own house,” she said. If someone wants a bed, maybe she’ll sell it or maybe she will get rid of the bed she has at home. As far as the dresser goes, she said, “I think my parents want to keep it – they really like it.”

After winning Safe Cracker, Larsen stepped to the side of the stage while the crew set up the Big Wheel.

Her first spin resulted in 10 cents. She said the wheel is heavier than it looks. “If you don’t think about what you’re doing, it won’t go around,” Larsen said.

Her second spin ended on 25, with the dial bent over the notch, just missing the 90. She said she was disappointed she didn’t get $1.00, but still can’t believe she was actually on “The Price is Right.” McConnell said Larsen won about $5,600 total.

The episode aired Oct. 1 and a group of girls in Oak Ridge got together to watch the show. Larsen said she was embarrassed watching it.

“I know I’m a facial person,” she said. “The whole nation gets to see me and I was acting crazy.”

The trip came about after McConnell’s parents gave her two plane tickets to anywhere in the continental United States for a graduation present, McConnell said. She narrowed it down to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. and let Larsen pick the final destination.

“I never had a chance to go to L.A.,” Larsen said, adding that she always thought it would be fun to be on “The Price Is Right.” “I’ve watched it ever since I was little,” she said.

As soon as the tickets came in the mail, they began to plan for their possible television debut.

“We both drive awful cars and have stories of how we have been humiliated by them, so everyone decided that ‘In Bob We Trust … To Replace Our Cars Filled With Rust’ was just the thing we wanted our shirts to say,” McConnell said.

Larsen’s car is old and big, Larsen said, adding that it’s called the “Grandma Grocery Getter.” McConnell said her car started on fire one day in the high school parking lot. The girls hoped their T-shirts would catch the interviewers’ attention, Larsen said.

They got up to go to the studio at 3 a.m. for the 1:30 p.m. taping.

“We were 150 people back at 5 in the morning,” Larsen said. By the time they actually got to the interview portion, it was about 12:30 p.m., she said.

The producer and two others interviewed people in groups of 10, giving each person about five to 10 seconds to sell themselves, Larsen said.

The interviewers typically ask where a person is from or their occupation. Larsen was asked where she was from. Knowing that she had little time to make a lasting impression, she said she started talking really fast.

She said, “I’m Becky Larsen. I’m from Neillsville, Wis. and we have the largest talking cow and the biggest chunk of cheese.”

Larsen succeeded at making an impression on the interviewers and became one of the lucky few to have Rod Roddy tell them to “Come on down.”