Dutchess County Man Continues Winning Streak on ‘Jeopardy!’

A Dutchess County man grabbed $28 thousand on "Jeopardy!" and returns as champion tonight.

Scott Bateman is a filmmaker from Beacon who impressively won Wednesday night's game show after giving the correct question to the Final Jeopardy! answer. Under the category of 20th Century Science Terms the answer was:

This 4-letter word was introduced in London in 1905 by Dr. H.A. Des Voeux of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society

Bateman correctly wrote down "What is smog," earning him the $10,401 he wagered, bringing his total to $28,001. That was enough to beat Barbara Colberg, a Navy judge advocate from Newport, RI, who was the only other contestant to answer correctly.

The Jeopardy Fan website keeps stats of each player, and according to their listing from last night's show, Bateman got all 20 questions he answered throughout the game correct. If he wants to become a true champion, however, Bateman is going to have to work on his buzzer skills. The site has him as only being 28% successful on buzzing in first. Out of 54 tries he was the first one to answer just 15 times.

This is not Bateman's first time on a TV game show. He once competed on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," winning $100,000. The Beacon filmmaker is also an author. He penned a book called the Disalmanac, which is a humorous collection of untrue facts that sound like they should be true. It's still available through Amazon.

On Thursday night Bateman will return as champion, taking on a student from Virginia and a Program Director from Medford, Massachusetts. "Jeopardy!" airs at 7pm on ABC.