TOP MILKER ON NICKELODEON SHOW; 'FIGURE IT OUT' PANEL STUMPED

Katie Hemmann knows how to milk cows. Nickelodeon's game-show panelists don't.

After stumping the four panelists on the "Figure It Out" television game show and winning a skiing trip to New Hampshire and other prizes, the 14-year-old Oak Ridge girl gave the panelists a live demonstration of cow milking.

The panelists then tried their hand at milking the three cows on stage.

Were they any good? "No, not really," Hemmann said Tuesday.

Hemmann taped the show Thursday at Nickelodeon studios in Orlando, Fla. She expects to know in two weeks when the children's show will air.

She won a spot on the show after winning the grand-champion milker title at an August 1998 milking contest at the Kirchdoerfer dairy farm here. The Cape Girardeau VFW post sponsored the milking contest and videotaped it with a view toward getting the winner a spot on the Nickelodeon game show.

The milking contest was billed as the only one in Missouri and followed Cape Girardeau City Councilman Melvin Gateley's winning effort at a Fourth of July milking contest last year.

Rodger Brown of the VFW said the tape was edited and sound added by a local production company.

Brown said the tape was mailed to Nickelodeon last year but apparently failed to reach the cable channel's offices.

"They contacted me again this year, and I sent it to them again," said Brown, who heard from Nickelodeon three weeks ago.

"They called and said they couldn't believe what a wonderful job we did on that tape," he said.

Nickelodeon flew Hemmann and her parents, David and Cathy Hemmann, to Florida. They flew to Orlando on Wednesday for the Thursday morning taping.

"We had to be there at 8:30 a.m.," which was the first of four shows taped that day, Hemmann said. Nickelodeon tapes the show only twice a year, three weeks each time.

This three-week session was devoted to animals, she said, adding that her show took about an hour to tape counting breaks, including one to bring three cows on stage.

The panelists failed to figure out what Hemmann had accomplished. The correct answer was "filled bucket to win cow milking contest."

Hemmann won prizes on all three rounds of the game show. She won a $100 Blockbuster gift certificate on the first round, a TV/VCR on the second and the ski trip on the third.

Hemmann has never skied, but she has milked plenty of cows on her parents' dairy farm.

She said the game show was fun, and she didn't feel any pressure on the set.

Hemmann said she probably felt more pressure last August when she beat out seven other boys and girls to win the local milking contest.