"Dave Rinehart '95, come on doowwn!"
He was the latest Dartmouth contestant on "The Price is Right" game show, in which he won a trip for six days and six nights to Australia in the Check-Out game.
The win was the highlight of a Spring break trip packed with celebrity encounters and almost-on-the-air exposure for 12 members of the Aires, one of Dartmouth's a cappella singing groups.
Rinehart was in the audience with the other members of the Aires, who spent the break in California on a singing tour, when he was called. His big win will air April 14.
Rinehart is currently on a Foreign Study Program in Germany and was not available for comment. Aires' members cannot remember the total value of his win.
In the Check-Out game, Rinehart had to guess the prices of five grocery products. The total difference between the prices he guessed and the actual values could not exceed 50 cents.
"He was great on the show. I knew he would do well because he had worked in a grocery store last term," Aires director Kieran McNulty '95 said.
Unable to sing on the air of "The Price is Right," the a cappella sang to Barker during a commercial break. After the show, they went backstage to give Barker one of their compact discs and to pose for photographs with him and the show's models.
The group just missed another chance to sing on the air when they visited a taping of the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," Zavod said.
"Jay Leno let us sing once before taping, but we couldn't sing on the show because there wasn't enough time, even though the audience heard us when we were on line and cheered for us to sing," Zavod said.
The musical guest on that night's show was The Knack, who sang the 1979 hit "My Sharona," a song the Aires regularly performs.
The Aires, like many campus singing groups, including the Chamber Singers and the Glee Club, regularly schedule off-campus tours during breaks.
The Aires flew to San Francisco the Tuesday after Winter term final exams. The members sang for alumni groups in Palo Alto, San Diego, San Francisco and Pasadena.
During a visit to the Headlands of San Francisco, an old site of World War II bunkers, the Aires were singing in a long tunnel in the bunkers when Steve Perry, the lead singer of the group Journey, heard them singing while he was driving by. He stopped his car to speak to the singers and to buy their CD.
As a fitting end to the trip, the Aires met Greg Allman of the singing group the Allman Brothers on the plane home, Zavod said.
Coincidentally, the day Reinhart was called on to "The Price is Right," another Dartmouth student who played the same game show was having his episode aired.
