It was Austin Kwikkel's last opportunity to get on stage at "The Price is Right."

After being told to "come on down" during the second half of the show, the 26-year-old Cape Girardeau native was competing against three others as they guessed the cost of a diamond pendent.

One contestant bid $7,000; the others, $1,300 and $1,000. Kwikkel bid $1,425.

The actual retail price: $1,999.

Kwikkel, with the closest bid without going over, celebrated and ran on stage, greeted by show host Drew Carey.

Austin Kwikkel awaits the verdict from host Drew Carey of his guessed price during the Showcase Showdown portion of "The Price Is Right." (Screen capture)

"You made it," Carey told Kwikkel. "You were sitting way in the corner, next to the wall. You probably thought, 'Well, they'll never pick me. I'm stuck up here.' But here you are, on stage."

He then was presented with four items: a refrigerator, an exercise bike, a foosball table and a desktop computer. The game was Take Two.

Kwikkel was asked to choose two prizes that would add up to the total price of $5,299. A contestant is given two chances, but Kwikkel needed only one.

He selected the bike, revealed to cost $2,199, and the $3,100 computer. Then all four prizes were his.

It was mid-July, and Kwikkel was in California visiting his girlfriend, Madison Klaus, a Jackson native who is a traveling nurse. They decided to go to the game show on a whim, he said.

Each person who attends the show goes through a quick 10- to 15-second interview with the producer, and Klaus was interviewed before Kwikkel.

Klaus told the producer she's a pediatric nurse, and Kwikkel made the joke, "Well, that fits me, because I'm a big kid, and she can take care of me."

They were put in the back corner of the room, and the producer, who was standing on stage, kept looking in the couple's direction.

"I leaned over and I told her, 'I think they're going to call us up,'" he said. "Because we had thought about leaving. It wasn't really our thing to do, and it took four hours to get into the studio."

They decided to wait, and during the second half of the show, Kwikkel was the first person to be called.

"I had a feeling it was going to be one of us," he said.

The time flew by, Kwikkel said. It took about an hour after his name was announced for the show to end, he said, but it felt like just a few minutes.

He had watched the show growing up and remembers yelling at the television screen when someone made the notorious move of bidding $1 over someone else. He never would've guessed the same would happen to him someday, he said, but another contestant bid $1 higher than Kwikkel earlier in the show.

But Kwikkel came out ahead when he spun the big wheel. The arrow pointed to 95 cents -- 30 cents higher than the man who had bid $1 higher.

"It was a nice feeling to get that lucky roll, 95 the first time," he said.

Kwikkel made it to the Showcase Showdown, with an opportunity to win surf boards, a vacation to Maui and a boat. But his bid was too high, and another contestant won the show.

The episode aired Monday, and Kwikkel said he watched it alone. Because he signed a confidentiality agreement, he and Klaus couldn't talk to friends or family about what happened during the show. So he hinted to family they needed to watch and said maybe they would see him in the crowd.

He then received lots of phone calls and text messages, and Kwikkel said it was exciting to finally share his story with everyone.

Kwikkel graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 2014 with a degree in political science. He plans to become an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and was in the reserves after high school.

Carey, who served a six-year stint in the Marine Corps, is the first celebrity Kwikkel has met. Carey was easy-going, Kwikkel said, and they were able to talk for a bit.

"I didn't win the showcase, but it was still a heck of a lot of fun just getting up there," he said. "Going over the top with it was probably the best part. Everybody was out there having fun. It's just a contestant- and crowd-oriented type of game show. It was a blast."

klamb@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3639

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Want to watch?

Monday*'s episode of *"The Price is Right*" that features Cape Girardeau native Austin Kwikkel is available to watch at CBS.com. Visit the website, then type *"The Price is Right episodes*" in the search engine.