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Gold Rush Winner Is Michael Kearney

November 12, 2006 01:03:59 by Joe Reality

The winner of the top prize of $1 million in AOL’s Gold Rush is Michael Kearney of Nashville, Tennessee.  Kearney initially won $100,000 during the qualifying Gold Competition held in Atlanta, and now becomes the first $1 million winner in the online reality game.

According to an AOL press release, Kearney is a former child prodigy and the world’s youngest college graduate at age 10.  Kearney defeated the two other finalists, Matt Green (Indialantic, Fla.) and Ali Stone (Washington, DC), during the $1 million finale round.  Kearney said “Life has always been weird for me. I graduated college at 10, so I was always the weird kid. Now I’m the weird kid with money.”

Kearney dominated the first round of the competition. During the round, contestants were asked to identify celebrity photos. The first player to buzz in and correctly name three moved onto the final round.  After winning the first round competition, Kearney advanced to the final round, and earned the right to skip the second round competition where Stone and Green faced off in a high-speed round of “Picture This,” where the players had to identify the name of the movie or television show being described in each image. Green edged out Stone to move on and face Kearney in the final showdown.
However, Green was no match for Kearney during third and final pop culture trivia round, when Kearney swept the category by answering all of the questions correctly with his lightning quick reflexes to the buzzer - not giving Green a single opportunity to answer any of the questions.

“I expected to go home during every phase of this game. I made a conscious effort not to think about the money and spend what I didn’t have,” said Kearney after being declared the pop culture champion. “But now that I have it, I plan to share it with my friends and family. One of the first things I plan to do is fly my parents down from Juneau, Alaska, for the winter since I haven’t seen them in a while.”
Kearney, who at 22 already has three degrees and is currently working on a doctorate in chemistry, graduated high school at age 6, earned a BA in Anthropology from the University of South Alabama at 10, a master’s degree in chemistry from Middle Tennessee State University at 14, and a master’s degree in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University at 18. He is currently completing a doctorate in chemistry at Middle Tennessee State University, where he also works as a teaching assistant in the chemistry department.

“We broke new territory by bringing a fast-paced, multi-media reality game to the masses and now someone just got rich,” said Gold Rush producer Mark Burnett. “We look forward to launching another exciting season of Gold Rush next year and make yet another lucky person a millionaire.”

“This is definitely a watershed moment,” added Kevin Conroy, EVP of AOL. “More than 11 million people experienced an entirely new kind of reality game and we’re looking forward to reaching even more people with Gold Rush II.”

The $1 million finale round of Gold Rush is currently airing, free on demand, on AOL.COM/GOLDRUSH (www.aol.com/goldrush) throughout this month.

Related posts:

1. Gold Rush Final Round Kicks Off
2. Gold Rush Goes Hollywood Announced By AOL
3. Gold Rush Finale To Air On Entertainment Tonight
4. Mark Steines To Host Gold Rush
5. AOL, Mark Burnett, And CBS Partner On Gold Rush

Topics: Gold Rush |

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4 Responses to “Gold Rush Winner Is Michael Kearney”

1. University Update Says:
   November 13th, 2006 at 2:27 am

   Gold Rush Winner Is Michael Kearney

2. GoldMaster Says:
   November 15th, 2006 at 11:05 am

   Check out the community at http://goldrushforum.net for help with the challenges when Gold Rush II starts up.

3. snerrst Says:
   July 5th, 2007 at 10:13 am

   gmjcsqprbh

4. www.lake-shore.co.uk Says:
   October 11th, 2007 at 10:23 am

   Check out the community

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