Former Corbin, W’burg teacher appears on Wheel of Fortune during Teacher’s Week

Fans of the popular game show Wheel of Fortune may have noticed a familiar face when they tuned in last Thursday, Oct. 5.

Sarah Shelley, formerly Sarah Steely, is a Williamsburg native who is currently living in Ohio with her husband, John, also originally from the local area. Due to his service in the United States Army, the couple has lived in several different locations over the past 11 years, including Hawaii, Georgia and Indiana.

Sarah was a cheerleader at Williamsburg High School, and after graduating in 2002 she went on to dance at the University of the Cumberlands. She ended up earning her master’s degree at UC while she was a fourth-grade teacher in the Corbin Independent School system in 2009. Later that same year, she left Corbin Schools and returned to Williamsburg to teach preschool and coach cheerleading. Throughout all of this, she also worked as a dance instructor at the Gail Fredericks studio on Master Street in Corbin.

“It all happened while we were in the process of moving from Indiana to Ohio,” Shelley said of being notified that she was going to be appearing on the show.

Going back to the beginning of the process, she explained, “During covid, when we were teaching virtually from home, I saw that they were accepting virtual auditions to appear on Wheel of Fortune during Teacher’s Week, which is something that they do every year. I sent in a video in January of 2021.”

“I didn’t hear anything until April of this year,” Shelley said. “A few weeks before the invite, my husband was actually asking what ever happened with that situation, and then I got the e-mail. I was very excited.”

Shelley learned in May that she was a finalist to appear on the show. The official call inviting her and her husband to come out to Los Angeles for the taping came a few weeks later, in July.

“I had been to San Francisco previously, but this was our first time in LA,” Shelley said. “We got there the night before the taping, and our show was done fourth in a series of five tapings. My husband, because of his military service, got a special t-shirt. It was a super-awesome experience from beginning to end. They made us feel like royalty the entire time.”

Shelley said that she was disappointed about the fact that longtime co-host Vanna White was sick, and could not be present for the tapings. She did describe host Pat Sajak as being “super nice,” however.

“We have watched the Wheel of Fortune our whole marriage,” Shelley said. “We watch it together, and try to compete with each other. Both of our kids learned their letters by watching the show.”

The Shelleys have two children – Rex, who is 6, and Sadie, 5.

Shelley did well on her national gameshow debut, managing to solve puzzles at the beginning and at the end of the show. Although she did not walk away as the overall champion, she still won just over $6,000.

Shelley plans on being back in Whitley County this week to visit with friends and family. She was last in Williamsburg for Homecoming Week, and got to see many of her former students, now as high schoolers, at the football game between the Yellow Jackets and the Waggener Wildcats on Sept. 8.

Now that Shelley is employed as a middle school math teach at Middletown Christian School in Middletown, Ohio, she is hopeful that she can make it back home a little more often than she has managed to in previous years.