A University alumna may take home a small fortune tonight from one of America’s longest-running TV game shows.

Ashlyn Ridlehoover, a 2007 graduate from Spartanburg, S.C., will appear as a contestant on tonight’s episode of Wheel of Fortune.

“I always watched the show with my grandmother and I heard something about it coming to Boston,” Ridlehoover said. “I got an e-mail to sign up for tickets and I quickly filled something out online about being a contestant.”

Within a couple weeks, Ridlehoover received an e-mail inviting her to the second round of auditions.

“They did six rounds with different groups of about 80 people,” Ridlehoover said. “We did mock puzzles, puzzle quizzes and they looked at applications to narrow it down to 25 people in each group.”

After seeing thousands audition, Ridlehoover started to doubt her chances of getting to spin the famous wheel.

“I left the audition thinking I only did OK and that the only prize I’d win was the ‘I auditioned for the Wheel of Fortune’ pencil they gave me,” she said.

While sitting by her friend’s pool, Ridlehoover received a call from an unknown number with a 310 area code from Los Angeles.

“Someone called and said, ‘We’ve decided we want you on the show and here’s the taping date,’” she said.

Instead of traveling to Los Angeles, the wheel came to Ridlehoover in Boston to film its “Historic Boston” theme week – and her parents and friends were in the audience.

“I didn’t realize how big of a production it is, especially since it was on the road,” she said. “They came to Boston to hold auditions and taped three days in early September.”

The day of the taping Ridlehoover and the other contestants spent several hours at the studio.

“We got there at 9 a.m. and taping didn’t start until 3:30 p.m.,” she said. “We had to take care of makeup, legal stuff and we got to practice spinning the wheel a couple times.”

During her time spent at the studio, Ridlehoover said she became well acquainted with the other contestants.

“There were 15 of us for the five shows, and two alternates,” she said. “We all got so close that morning that you want everyone you’ve met to do well on the show, even if you couldn’t.”

The contestants found out after lunch who they’d be competing against and where they’d be standing on the show.

Ridlehoover said she was in the red position, a color she was comfortable in as a University alumna.

“I stood next to Pat [Sajak, host of Wheel of Fortune] in the first spot and got to say ‘Go Dawgs’ when he introduced me,” she said. “He’s a very good host and was good at keeping us calm during commercial breaks.”

Ridlehoover said she was so shocked to have been chosen for the game, she didn’t even notice Vanna White during the puzzles because she was concentrating so intently.

“I maybe remember seeing her turn over one or two letters because I was so focused in on trying to get everything done,” Ridlehoover said.

And though Ridlehoover said she was disappointed she couldn’t meet Vanna White, she was pleased with her own performance on the show. She is not able to reveal the outcome of the game, but she said she was happy about everything and wouldn’t have done anything differently.

In addition to representing her alma mater on air, Ridlehoover also stays tied to her Bulldog roots as the vice president of events for the Boston Bulldog Alumni Club.

“We have a huge alumni group and we usually have about 70 people watch the games at the same bar every week together,” she said. “It’s a good way for us to stick together, and we even have our own Web site and Facebook group.”

Members of the alumni group and other friends of Ridlehoover rented out the back room of a bar to watch tonight’s show.

Her friends and family will also be congregating at Wild Wings in Spartanburg, S.C. to see how Ridlehoover performs.

“Even my old elementary school teachers will be at my parents’ party, which is interesting since these are the people that taught me my alphabet and words that are the fundamentals of the show,” she said.

The show airs today at 7 p.m. on the NBC network.