By Tara de Ryk
DAVIDSON—The big wheel on The Price is Right is heavy said Davidson’s Ramona Lyke.
She volunteers the information and in doing so clears up one of the mysteries of television that has nagged some fans of the show for decades.
Lyke got to spin the big wheel in the late 1980s when she was a contestant on the longest running and most popular game show of all time.
Thanks to the video-sharing website YouTube anyone with a computer or some kind of “device” and internet connection can watch Lyke spin the big wheel and hear announcer Rod Roddy’s summons: “Ramona Lyke, Come on down! You are the next contestant on The Price is Right.”
Ramona said in the summer of 1986, friends from their cabin community at Lake Diefenbaker asked them if they got tickets to The Price is Right, whether they’d be interested in going once they were at their place in Mesa, Arizona that winter.
Ramona said her husband Roy said yes, and on Jan. 20, 1987 they found themselves at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, Calif. standing in line for the show.
“It was quite a rigamarole to get in. We had to stand in line for about one hour and they take all your credentials. After you go through that line to qualify then we had to go through another one. They ask you about your life, what you do and have done,” she said.
Ramona said she told them about being a farmer’s wife, that she drove combines, tractors and helped in the field.
“I guess they’re trying to figure out who’d be interesting on stage.”
She didn’t have to wait long.
After a physics teacher named John from Fresno, Calif. had finished his turn on stage, Roddy called her down. Roy and Ramona were sitting in the front row, so she didn’t have far to go.
“It was a real surprise,” she said of having her name called.
Once in contestants row, Lyke was the first to bid on the prize: three trick bicycles.
“It was a shot in the dark,” Lyke said of her $701 bid. “Who would know what the price of trick bikes were?”
All four contestants overbid.
On the next go-around Lyke said she pulled another number out of a hat, it was $451, won the bikes and found herself onstage with Bob Barker.
“There were so many wires. I was afraid I would trip. I didn’t want to fall and make a fool of myself,” she said.
Lyke handled herself well and appears very calm and composed.
“Bob Barker, he was wonderful. He was very gentle and kind. He made you feel at home.”
To read more, please see the Nov. 10, 2014 edition of The Davidson Leader. To subscribe, please call 306-567-2047 or email davidsonleader@sasktel.net.

To view Ramona’s appearance on The Price is Right simply go to this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw211yl9-yY