He took the long way to game show

Matt Swanson makes puzzles for a living, owns a rainbow of colored Chuck Taylor All Star shoes and a year ago graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha after taking classes for 30 years.

That's all fine and good, but is the 50-year-old Omahan smart enough to become a millionaire? Beginning today, a national TV audience will find out.

Swanson will appear on the daytime version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” today and Friday. The show airs locally at 11 a.m. on Channel 6.

He'd been trying to get on the game show for a decade. He's answered questions over the phone and in person at show testing sites in Kansas City, Minneapolis and Omaha.

This summer, he again took a “Millionaire” test in Kansas City and advanced to two rounds of interviews. Finally, a postcard arrived, telling him he'd been selected to compete on the prime-time version of the show hosted by Regis Philbin.

But in reading through one of the numerous e-mails about rules and requirements, Swanson nearly wept — with frustration, not joy.

The prime-time show airs on ABC, which is affiliated with West Corp., where Swanson's wife works. As a result, he couldn't compete.

“I wanted to jump off the South Omaha Bridge,” he said.

He alerted producers and asked to keep his spot anyway. On the morning of his daughter's July wedding, they gave him their formal decision: No.

“I had to try to put on a happy face,” he said.

But Swanson still was eligible to compete on the syndicated daytime version of the show because it had no ties to ABC. A little while later, Swanson got another postcard telling him he could compete on that show, hosted by Meredith Vieira.

So in late September, Swanson and his wife, Sharon, flew to New York City. Sharon sat in the audience through an entire day of taping — the equivalent of five episodes. Swanson answered a few questions on one episode and made it through to a second. Between filming, he had to change his clothes — and shoes. He wore green Chuck Taylors in the first episode and yellow in the second.

He can't reveal how he fared. Heck, he can hardly remember.

“It was a blur,” he said. “It was fun, but it was a blur.”

He can say one thing: Vieira is as nice as she is nice-looking.

“She's a peach,” he said. “Very nice, very classy and very attractive.”

Swanson took her a personalized puzzle, and she seemed to enjoy it. Swanson and his wife run Home-Grown Jigsaws, a business that creates puzzles from photographs. Henry Doorly Zoo and Lauritzen Gardens are a couple of Swanson's clients.

It's a, well, puzzling profession, but Swanson enjoys it.

“You're either puzzle people or you're not,” he said. “We're definitely puzzle people.”

Business is good, but it doesn't pay all the bills. That's where being a millionaire would come in handy. Swanson works as an usher at the Qwest Center Omaha as a second job.

He used to work for Qwest Communications but was laid off a year ago. A month after that, he graduated from UNO with a creative writing degree. He'd been taking a class here and there for 30 years.

“Now I guess I have to write a novel,” he said.

He won't have to look too far for a main character. But a puzzle-making, Chuck Taylor-collecting, game-show-playing re- cent college graduate seems almost stranger than fiction.

“And,” he said, “you'll have to tune in to see how the story ends.”

Contact the writer:

444-1220, dane.stickney@owh.com

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