Ken Jennings
While this author has a flair for writing and an excellent sense of humor, it isn't his writing that brought him fame. It was his penchant for all things trivial — and his quick recall of specific fact.
Ken Jennings, the author of a book on the world of trivia, is best-known as a pop culture icon for his 74-game winning streak on Jeopardy!.
Ken Jennings was born in Washington and then spent 11 years growing up in Seoul, South Korea and four years in Singapore while his father worked for a law firm. He later attended Brigham Young University where he earned a degree in computer science and English. It was at BYU that he met his wife, Mindy and they married the year they graduated.
While he says he was already starting to hide his love for trivia, he did compete with BYU's quiz bowl team for three and a half years-serving as a captain on a team that often finished in the top 10 at national tournaments. He continues to write questions for quiz bowl and was their moderator for the National Academic Quiz Tournaments' 2005 and 2006 high school tournaments in Chicago.
He was working as a software engineer for a healthcare company when he auditioned for and made it onto Jeopardy!
After winning 74 games and $2.52 million on Jeopardy (10 percent of which he tithed to his church, the Church of Latter-Day Saints), he began appearing on numerous talk shows and even got to visit Sesame Street.
