For Monica “Shonda” Gosnell, the price of a West Coast trip and a TV game show appearance was exactly right.
She and her husband, Kenneth, went on a four-day vacation to California and had tickets to several TV shows — including “The Price Is Right.”
Taped in September, the show aired Monday and it showed Shonda Gosnell winning big. She and her husband literally jumped for joy when they realized she had won.
She took home a new Dodge Ram pickup truck, a trip to Charleston, S.C., and diamond jewelry.
One of the last two contestants to bid, Gosnell bid $27,500 for the prizes. The actual cost was $33,795.
She got to spin the huge numbers wheel and beat out two other contestants as she came closest to $1 without going over.
Gosnell and her husband are thinking of giving away the truck, she said Monday evening.
“My husband and I prayed about it and think God may want us to give the truck away to charity,” she said via telephone.
“We could use a new car, but we may sell the jewelry and get a car with that money.”
Kenneth Gosnell is a franchise owner of C-12, a Christian group that brings CEOs together at a roundtable. Shonda works for the federal government in Rockville. They have four children: Carli, Caleb, Kaiden, and Kyston.
“There are a lot of people worse off than we are,” Shonda said.
She threw a party Monday evening with friends, and some did not know she had won the prizes. Under the contract with ABC, the Gosnells could not disclose whether they had won before the show aired.
The show has 90 days to send out the prizes, Shonda said, and the couple must pay taxes — California, Maryland and federal — on all the items.
“We have to take the trip (to Charleston) or lose it. And we will pay taxes on it, so we will take it,” she said.
The Gosnells had passed through Los Angeles when they got married and wanted to go back to the city, she said.
“It was a couple’s getaway.”
