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FORT PIERCE — Fort Pierce native and Dartmouth University senior Ashley Walker was eliminated from the 2010 Jeopardy! college championship Tuesday night.
Walker , who won her first-round matchup, failed to qualify for Final Jeopardy when she finished the first two rounds Tuesday with $200.
She still takes home $10,000 because she was a semifinalist.
FORT PIERCE — Minutes after realizing his wife had a successful surgery, Dr. Wiwle Jean-Pierre sat emotionless on a hospital bed at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute on Thursday as he took note of the destruction at his home and office in Port-au-Prince. (more…)
FORT PIERCE — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched a criminal investigation into allegations of corruption in the city’s Community Services division, City Hall announced late Thursday. (more…)
FORT PIERCE — Fort Pierce native Ashley Walker appears on Jeopardy! starting this week as part of the team selected to be among a cast of “15 of the country’s brightest college students” participating in the television game show’s 22nd college championship.
The series is being aired this week and next, Monday through Feb. 12.
Walker, 21 and a Dartmouth College senior, flew to Los Angeles at the beginning of January for the 10-show taping and a chance to win $100,000.
“I’m excited to meet Alex Trebek, and I’m a bit nervous to be on TV,” Walker said in December. Walker graduated from Fort Pierce’s Lincoln Park Academy in 2006. “If I win, I’ll probably use the money to go to law school, but at this point I’m just trying to go in clean and see this as a fun opportunity.”
Walker hoped to experience the theme music, witty banter, buzzers, stress and live studio audience for years.
A Jeopardy! fan since she was younger, the trivia buff took the show’s online quiz twice and even traveled once from her New Hampshire college to Boston for a live audition. Given the odds, she never thought she would hear from anyone.
Then, on Dec. 6, she received a phone call from an unfamiliar number while she was studying for exams. And just like that, Walker was planning her all-expenses paid trip to L.A.
As a member of her school’s College Bowl competitive trivia team, Walker is familiar with this kind of competition.
“Jeopardy! is about speed,” she said. “I think on most questions, a lot of people know the answer, but it’s just the speed of recall that can trip you up. If you study, it will help with recall.”
So with a little less than a month to prepare, Walker crammed. She watched as many previous shows as possible to get a feel for some the popular topics and pulled out her old SAT-prep books that provide succinct overviews of subjects like American history and the Cold War.
More than anything, though, she hoped to make it to the end of the game with all of the random tidbits she’s collected over the years.
For example, she learned the other day that Coca-Cola would be green if the manufacturers didn’t add food coloring. And a Sunday school song taught her the correct order of all of the books of Bible.
Whether or not Trebek asks what comes after the Book of Job — and whether she makes it to the $100,000 mark — Walker has been forced to keep mum about the result when she came home.
She’ll re-experience her victory or defeat along with her Dartmouth friends during a viewing party when the show airs.
About the 22nd college championship of Jeopardy!
In January, Ashley Walker of Fort Pierce and 14 other contestants from colleges throughout the country will tape 10 episodes of “Jeopardy!” in Los Angeles.
The two-week competition is scheduled to be broadcast Monday–feb. 12.
During the first week, each contestant will appear in one of the five shows. Winners from each of the shows and the next four highest money-earners will advance to the semifinals.
In the second week, the nine remaining contenders will go head-to-head in three episodes for a slot in the two-game final match.
Those knocked out in the first week will receive $5,000. Semifinalists will take home $10,000; the third-place winner $25,000; second-place $50,000; and first-place $100,000.
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FORT PIERCE — A 30-year-old Fort Pierce man is accused of attacking a relative with a knife because the relative had turned off the TV, according to a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.
Fransisco Yanez-Mejia, of the 1700 block of Boston Avenue, was arrested at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday and charged with felony aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony.
Yanez-Mejia said he got upset when his relative turned off the TV, according to the affidavit. His relative said Yanez-Mejia grabbed a knife, chased him around the house and threatened to kill him.
After using a small trash can to block the knife, the relative ran into a bathroom and called 911. Yanez-Mejia said he had a knife to cut lemons and had no intentions to hurt anyone, according to the affidavit.
Yanez-Mejia remained in the county jail Sunday with a $5,000 bail. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also had been called.
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FORT PIERCE — A 51-year-old Stuart man and a 20-year-old Fort Pierce woman are accused of buying and selling prostitution services Saturday afternoon in the area of Ridgehaven Road, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit.
Charles Cleveland Crispin, of the 30 block of East Highpoint Road, and Jenna Denise Etienne, of the 500 block of North Eight Street, were arrested at about 4:30 p.m. Saturday and each charged with misdemeanor prostitution and misdemeanor possession of narcotic equipment. Crispin also was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana.
Crispin said he picked up Etienne down the road and paid her for prostitution services, according to the affidavit. He said she had been smoking marijuana in the vehicle.
Officers found marijuana and rolling papers, according to the affidavit, as well as a glass crack pipe hidden between Etienne’s legs.
Crispin was released Saturday on a $1,250 bail, but Etienne remained in the county jail Sunday on a $750 bail.
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FORT PIERCE — Police are investigating a Thursday home invasion armed robbery in which cash and prescription drugs were reported stolen by about three assailants, according to a report.
An officer was dispatched about 1:20 a.m. to an address in the 4500 block of Timber Ridge Lane and spoke to the victims — two women and a man. (more…)
Indian River Terminal employees load tarps onto an Atlantic Caribbean Line ship, chartered by Samaritan's Purse and The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, that were shipped from the Port of Fort Pierce to Haiti on Monday evening. The ship is expected to arrive in Haiti on Friday. Photos by Sarah Grile.
FORT PIERCE — The second phase of earthquake relief for Haiti is under way as 200 tons of heavy equipment and building materials are being loaded onto a cargo ship Monday at the Port of Fort Pierce.
Once full of supplies for Samaritan’s Purse International Relief, the Caribe Star 1 is expected to set sail Monday night and arrive Friday morning at the dock of a former cement factory near Port-au-Prince.
As the supplies and equipment were being positioned at the port Monday morning, Luther Harrison, director of North American projects for Samaritan’s Purse, said the Boone, N.C.-based charity already had a team of 60 in Haiti when the earthquake hit.
(more…)
By WILL GREENLEE
Nahume Sony Belvilus
FORT PIERCE — A 31-year-old man accused of hitting two small children over the weekend and choking their mother faces four felony charges, according to an arrest affidavit obtained Monday.
A woman on Saturday told police she confronted her husband, Nahume Sony Belvilus, about a picture of a naked woman.
She said Belvilus, of the 200 block of South 24th Street, began slapping her and eventually pushed her to the floor where he started strangling her.
Her 10-year-old son tried to pull Belvilus off his mother. Belvilus punched him in the face, and he fell.
Belvilus punched the women’s 9-year-old daughter in the stomach when she tried to get him off her mother. An infant held by the mother during the altercation was dropped but not hurt.
Belvilus is awaiting trial on animal cruelty charges dating back to July 2007. More than two dozen poorly treated pitbulls had been restrained in his backyard with heavy chains fastened to metal stakes.
When police arrived following the recent incident, the 10-year-old boy was bleeding from the mouth, crying and shaking. The girl was hiding across the street in “extreme fear.”
Their mother was bleeding from the nose and mouth areas.
Belvilus told police to “ask my little baby girl what happen.”
That’s when she said, “He hit my mommy.”
Belvilus was arrested on charges including kidnapping and aggravated battery and two counts of cruelty toward child aggravated abuse.
FORT PIERCE — Two local men were arrested after St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office investigators on Wednesday stopped their sport utility vehicle and turned up marijuana and a loaded rifle, according to affidavits released Thursday.
A deputy traveling on North 25th Street about 11:10 a.m. Wednesday spotted a silver Pontiac SUV that turned onto Delaware Avenue. The SUV appeared to have illegal window tint and a sticker that was obscured on the tag. The SUV “rolled through” a stop sign and the deputy began trying to stop the vehicle. (more…)
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