When Mrs Kathy Cox won US$1 million on the television game show 'Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?'. she promised to donate the money to three schools for the deaf and blind. -- PHOTO: WORDPRESS.COM
ATLANTA: Mrs Kathy Cox may be smarter than a fifth-grader but she has about as little money as one. And a big heart.
She won US$1 million (S$1.5 million) on the television game show 'Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?', then pledged to give it all away.
Now she is bankrupt, after her husband's home-building business collapsed. But Mrs Cox is keeping her promise to give away all her prize money.
The Georgia state schools superintendent, who won the game show in September, made news across America and was praised for choosing to donate all her winnings to three schools for the deaf and blind.
But last week, she and her husband, John, filed for bankruptcy because of losses incurred in his business. She had no role in the business but co-signed loans for it.
She said in a statement: 'This was a gut-wrenching decision, but in the end, we felt that we had no choice.'
She will fulfil her pledge to special-needs children, and has established a foundation to handle the money, which will be distributed soon.
The couple listed US$3.5 million in liabilities and US$649,728 in assets. Their US$450,000 home has two mortgages on it.
Mrs Cox, who earns US$108,603 a year, said in the statement that the bankruptcy would not affect her performance as the overseer of the state's 1.7million public school children.
