Hoisington teacher wins ‘Wheel of Fortune’

HOISINGTON, Kan. (KSNW) – A middle school English teacher in Hoisington, Kiley Klug, took her language skills to the big stage, winning “Wheel of Fortune.”

“At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter how much I won or if I won; I just wanted to experience that and check it off my bucket list,” Klug said.

Klug says being a middle school English teacher, she loves all word games. She applied multiple times before getting her shot.

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After she got the “yes” she’d been waiting for, she began thinking of logistics. Klug says as a teacher, she wasn’t sure what they would be able to afford.

“We were trying to decide who to go with us; my husband was like, ‘Yeah, it’s probably just gonna be the two of us. I just don’t think we could swing four plane tickets. That’s a lot of money.'”

Then, everything fell into place. Klug formerly spent some time advocating for Dravet syndrome, an epilepsy syndrome, on the side. Her son Owen has Dravet syndrome. The organization she worked for contacted her to train new influencers.

“They wanted me to be like a coach, a trainer,” Klug said. “And so I said, ‘Yeah, absolutely. I’ll do that for sure.’ And they said, ‘You’ll be compensated for it.’ Like, ‘OK, I’d do it for free, but whatever.’ I got paid around the time we were debating whether or not we could take our kids, and I kid you not, it was exactly the amount of four plane tickets. So I just feel like all of these doors just opened.”

Throughout the process, her school and community supported her.

“They’ve been my biggest cheerleaders, both, you know, coworkers and students, and it’s just been fun that they get so excited for me,” Klug said. “It made me realize what a wonderful community I live in. I mean, I came home after my watch party to over 300 messages. People I haven’t talked to in decades, to people I talk to every day, they just were so supportive. And to hear them say, you make Barton County proud, and you make Odin proud. When people say that to me, that means everything to me that I that I made my communities proud because I do love living in central Kansas, and that was everything to me.”

Cindy Wilborn is also a teacher at Hoisington Middle School and says it was exciting for the entire school.

“It was very exciting for a smaller community, and she adds so much positivity to our school culture,” Wilborn said. “We were all rooting for her.”

Wilborn says Klug’s energy is contagious.

“She adds so much value to Hoisington Middle School and anything she’s involved in,” Wilborn said. “She’s got a huge heart, and she is all in for the kids.”

One of her puzzles gave her a wink from home. Her homeroom class started a project this year to learn the value of a dollar and how to maintain a business.

“Guess what the business is? It’s selling beautiful beaded bracelets,” Klug said. “One of my puzzles that I solved, my very first puzzle that I solved.”

Also, Klug’s air date was Pat Sajak’s final day of taping.

“We could tell that Pat was feeling pretty sentimental on our tape day because my boys got to come down for the bonus round, and my husband was so so excited because Pat came over and shook my husband’s hand and Dexter’s and Blake’s hands as well,” Klug said.

Her son Owen stayed home, but she kept a picture of him inside her jacket while she played.

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“It was really important for me to take him with me there,” Klug said. “Therefore, that’s why I have the picture inside of my blazer of him close to my heart. And it’s funny because he kept scratching me all day. He just kept kind of telling me, you know, ‘I’m here, mom, I’m here.’ And it was very important to me to get to the bonus round so that I could show his sweet face on television and share with Pat the wonderful kid that I left at home and share with the nation. I’m really, really excited for that reason that I got to the bonus round to show Owen, my Owen, to everybody who was watching.”

Klug won and says she wasn’t expecting that.

“Overall, I just wanted to go and bask in that experience, and I really wasn’t expecting to win anything,” Klug said. “I was just like, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna go, and I’m gonna have fun, and I’m going to cross this amazing opportunity off my bucket list and enjoy that time with my family, see the ocean and just take it all in.'”

Klug won $61,510 on “Wheel of Fortune.”

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