Q: What happened to the money that Kathy Cox won on “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” I believe she won $1 million, but the money wasn’t paid to her.
—Pinckney Purcell, Atlanta
A: A court settlement awarded half of Cox's winnings from the August 2008 game show appearance to three Georgia schools in 2011.
Cox was the state school superintendent when she won $1 million for correctly answering 11 questions on “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?”
She said at the time that all the winnings would go to the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon, the Georgia School for the Deaf in Cave Spring and the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf in Clarkston.
Months later, Cox and her husband filed for bankruptcy protection and the Chapter 7 trustee filed suit to use the winnings “for the Coxes’ creditors,” the AJC reported.
Cox wanted the schools to receive all the money.
“If anybody had watched the show, it was so clear I was there as the state school superintendent,” she told the AJC in 2010. “That money had nothing to do with what was happening to us personally.”
Q: What is Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush’s vice president, doing these days?
—Kathy McDonough, Peachtree Corners
A: Quayle is the chairman of global investments for Cerberus Capital Management, a private investment firm based in New York.
Quayle, who was vice president from 1989 to 1993, has been with Cerberus since 1999.
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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