Minooka's McEvilly-Reed will appear on a Wheel of Fortune’s “Secret Santa Holiday Giveaway”

When Peggy McEvilly-Reed talked to her Uncle Bob McEvilly for his birthday Nov. 14, she said he told her, “One month from today, I’m going to be watching you on TV.”

McEvilly-Reed will appear on a Wheel of Fortune’s “Secret Santa Holiday Giveaway” show at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday on WLS (ABC7).

But Bob will be “watching from heaven” along with McEvilly-Reed’s mother Ann McEvilly, McEvilly-Reed said. Bob died Dec. 4 and Ann, a longtime fan of the showed, died Feb. 6, 2020.

In fact, Ann sparked McEvilly-Reed’s interest in the show about 12 years ago and McEvilly-Reed, a traveling nurse, always watched “Wheel of Fortune” with Ann on McEvilly-Reed’s days off.

“She’d always say, ‘Why don’t you go on the show?’ and I’d say, ‘I don’t know, Mom,’ ” McEvilly-Reed said. “And then one day, we made the audition tape. So I went on the show to honor my mother.”

Ann’s nickname is Mama Bear, so Ann helped McEvilly-Reed write a song based on the Bear’s “Super Bowl Shuffle.” In a one-minute video, McEvilly-Reed rapped out the highlights of her life: mother of three, one of seven siblings, raised on a farm and an avid cyclist (Mc-Evilly-Reed rides 40 miles at a time on her days off, she said).

McEvilly-Reed submitted her recording in November 2019. Several weeks later McEvilly-Reed received a letter to attend an audition in Chicago. She was one of about 80 applicants that day and one of 20 who received follow-up letters that they were “put in a pool to be contestants,” McEvilly-Reed said.

In August, McEvilly received the hoped-for call. She traveled to California in October to tape Tuesday’s show and was thrilled to learn it was a " Secret Santa” show, since her mother loved those shows.

Here’s how “Secret Santa” works. Contestants appearing on the show from Dec. 6 through Dec. 17, 2021, become a “Secret Santa” to an at-home viewer with a Wheel Watchers Club member’s SPIN ID number. If a SPIN ID number is revealed, the at-home viewer becomes eligible to win the same prizes the contestant wins – provided the at-home viewer logs into wheeloffortune.com within 24 hours of the broadcast to claim the prizes.

“My mom always thought it was so cool that you could win a car or vacation or money without ever leaving your living room,” McEvilly-Reed said.

McEvilly-Reed said the entire “Wheel of Fortune” experience followed extremely strict COVID-19 protocols. She said every person she met was super friendly. What McEvilly-Reed can’t say is how she did on the show.

But she can say this.

“Mama Bear, my mom, was right there with me, whispering, ‘Buy a vowel,’ ” McEvilly-Reed said.