Big Lake woman on ‘Live! With Regis and Kelly’

BIG LAKE — Most Alaskans watching “Live! With Regis and Kelly” heard Big Lake resident Sharron Hayward’s voice sometime after 9 a.m., Friday.

But Hayward said the experience came for her much earlier. With time zones and tape delays, she was on the phone talking with Kelly Ripa and her co-host for the day Jerry O’Connell at 4:30 a.m.

“You’re kind of stumbling out of the bed saying who’s calling me this early in the morning,” Hayward said of the call she received.

Hayward is a devoted Regis and Kelly fan. She’s been watching the show since she moved to Big Lake in 1996, back when Kathie Lee Gifford was Regis Philbin’s co-host. Friday, she was on the show to play the show’s daily game in which they call a person and ask a trivia question about one of their previous guests. A correct answer wins the contestant a vacation.

In her case, Hayward was playing for a trip to Barbados. Hayward said she wasn’t so keen on that destination.

“A trip’s nice, but I’d rather stay in the country,” she said.

So perhaps she wasn’t terribly disappointed when she lost. The question asked had to do with actress Kate Winslet’s first film — “Heavenly Creatures,” according to the Internet Movie Database and the show’s hosts.

“I’ve only known her from like “Titanic” on. Other than it’s like, ‘Who? ‘What? She was in that?’” Hayward said.

And it wasn’t a total loss. She joked her husband might enjoy the consolation prize better — a $500 gas card.

Nor was it Hayward’s first time on the show. She frequently enters her name into the contest drawing online or sends postcards. About four years ago she got a similar call with a much different result.

“I won a trip and then, finance-wise, we couldn’t afford the taxes on it,” she said.

After the most recent contest was over, Hayward said, she stayed on the line to talk to Ripa and O’Connell about the weather in Alaska.

“Oh gosh. It was quite a few minutes — four, five maybe. It was pretty long. My husband said I was on longer than some of their guests are on,” Hayward said.

The hosts, she said, seemed interested in the temperature. They’d apparently been running an experiment outside their New York studios. The city is in the middle of a cold snap and the hosts were trying to see how long it took a glass of water on the sidewalk to freeze.

Though they were surprised to hear of the state’s recent warm weather, Hayward said, “I did mention how cold it was last week and they asked me, ‘Oh what do you wear when it’s so cold?’”

The answer?

“Three pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, two shirts, a hat and gloves while you’re in your house,” she said.

Perhaps most surprising, though it may be an indicator of how the country’s attention has turned, the hosts had no questions about Alaskan politics or the state’s recently famous governor.

“That was surprising. I thought maybe somebody would ask about it. A lot of friends when I’m on the phone say, ‘Oh do you know Sarah?’” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.