Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
Poised and thoroughly prepared, Greensboro’s Jocelyn Smith-Lee spun, spelled and successfully minded her p’s and q’s, while taking many vowels of insight to win more than $57,000, as an ebullient contestant on the immensely popular television game show, Wheel of Fortune.
Winning several puzzles for $17,698 which included a trip to New York, Smith-Lee entered the show’s bonus round, spinning the wheel top select a card for a chance to win $40,000, which she did, saying, “All the years of practice and guessing right, I guessed the bonus round.”
An inveterate Wheel Watcher for years, Smith-Lee celebrated her wordy performance at a home watch party with friends, family, neighbors — including this reporter — and colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she is an assistant professor, founder and director of the Centering Black Voices research lab in the university’s Human Development and Family Studies department. She has a psychology degree from Hampton University in Virginia, a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and doctorate in family science from the University of Maryland.
At the watch party for authenticity, she wore the jacket of the same fuchsia pantsuit that millions of views saw. Smith-Lee said she always wanted to be a Wheel of Fortune contestant, saying she grew up watching the game show for years with family members. Carrying on the tradition, she continued watching the program with daughter, Cypress Rose, and husband C.J. Lee, director of basketball operations at UNCG.
All the time Smith-Lee watched the program, she said to herself, “I could do this … because I was solving the puzzles for all these years.” Eventually, she submitted an audition tape in 2023 on her birthday and last summer she learned in a “surprise and providential” email she would be a contestant.
When the email arrived, Smith-Lee was in Pennsylvania visiting with her terminally ill mother, saying, “the exciting news arrived right on time so I could share it with her,” which was shortly before her death.
As she competed on the show, Smith-Lee was certain that her mother was with her in spirit.
