--- title: Maryland Teacher Wins $1 Million on Wheel of Fortune description: She also won a trip to the Dominican Republic canonical: https://time.com/3398807/teacher-wins-1-million-wheel-of-fortune/ author: Jack Linshi article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-18T17:49:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:13:18.750Z og:title: Meet the Third-Ever Contestant to Win $1 Million on Wheel of Fortune og:description: She's a math teacher in Maryland og:url: https://time.com/3398807/teacher-wins-1-million-wheel-of-fortune/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Third-Ever Contestant to Win $1 Million on Wheel of Fortune twitter:description: She's a math teacher in Maryland twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Math Teacher Is Third-Ever Contestant to Win $1 Million on _Wheel of Fortune_ > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Sep 18, 2014 5:49 PM UTC  by [Jack Linshi](https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/)  ## Jack Linshi Sep 18, 2014 5:49 PM UTC A Maryland math teacher has a lot of arithmetic to do after Wednesday night’s _Wheel of Fortune_—how she’s going to spend the $1,017,500 she won on the game show. In addition to winning the show’s biggest prize, Sarah Manchester won a trip to the Dominican Republic, and is “soaking in every minute” of her victory, the [_Associated Press_](http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article%5F2014-09-18-US--Wheel%20of%20Fortune%20Win/id-e5485724b9364ee7a99f8649dfd0858d) reports. Manchester, who teaches at Takoma Park Middle School, filmed the show in May. Manchester is the third-ever contestant to win the $1 million prize, [according to WJLA-TV](http://bit.ly/XFDHCK%20), following two contestants who won the prize in 2013 and 2008\. Manchester told _AP_ that she plans to use her winnings on her two kids’ education and to travel with her family. The $1 million wedge was added to the wheel in 2008\. To win the prize, the contestant must first collect the wedge, and make it to the Bonus Round without going bankrupt. There, one of the wedge’s envelopes that’d normally contain $100,000 is replaced with one containing $1 million. The contestant spins for a wedge, the host collects the envelope, the contestant must solve the challenge, and finally, the envelope’s content is revealed. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3398807/teacher-wins-1-million-wheel-of-fortune/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3398807/teacher-wins-1-million-wheel-of-fortune/"},"headline":"Math Teacher Is Third-Ever Contestant to Win $1 Million on Wheel of Fortune","datePublished":"2014-09-18T17:49:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:13:18.750Z","description":"She also won a trip to the Dominican Republic","url":"https://time.com/3398807/teacher-wins-1-million-wheel-of-fortune/","keywords":["Newsfeed","U.S."],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jack Linshi","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jack-linshi/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3398807/teacher-wins-1-million-wheel-of-fortune/","name":"Math Teacher Is Third-Ever Contestant to Win $1 Million on Wheel of Fortune"}}]}] ```