Producers typically send a letter to a contestant telling them they passed the audition consisting of mock games and a written test, and to expect an invitation to the show in the next 18 months, she said. “They called me out of the blue and asked me to fly out to California, I thought someone was playing a joke,” she said. Producers from the show surprised her with a phone call at the end of February after two auditions - the first at the show’s Wheel Mobile in Fort Myers and later in Orlando. Pollman, a Cape Coral resident and Web designer, flew out to California with her husband Clay on March 4 to film an episode of the popular, long-running television show. Hundreds of Tara Pollman’s friends and family gathered at the William Austen Youth Center on Wednesday night to see her compete on “Wheel of Fortune.”
