MARYSVILLE – Cory Cooper says he’s known at work as the “happy conductor, always singing.”

“Why bring your problems on other people?” he said Friday, adding he calls himself a “happy-go-lucky guy.”

Lucky is the operative word here. The Marysville man won the big showcase on the Price is Right show that aired Wednesday.

Cooper said the show was taped Oct. 25, on his wife’s birthday at the CBS Studios in Burbank, Calif. They were there on a mini vacation. His wife and some friends had tried to get on the show about four months before.

“She said with your personality, I’m positive they would pick you,” Cooper recalled.

He said he was glad to just get into the audience. They had tried to get in earlier but there already were too many people in line.

“I was happy to be there. It was on my bucket list,” he said.

Cooper said one man talks to all 300 people in the audience for about 30 seconds each and decides which nine will appear on the show.

He said he was no more energetic than the next person. “I thought I was subdued. I was tired,” he said. “You have no clue when you leave the room.”

But when the show started, his was the first name called. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said, excited even almost three months later.

Cooper was the third person to win one of the initial bidding rounds.

When he got onstage, he had to pick a number – 8 or 2. He looked at his wife. “She had been right all day,” he said. She picked 2, so he did, too. The number was 8 so they didn’t get the trip to Germany.

However, he had qualified to spin the Big Wheel, where the goal is to come as close to $1 as possible. The first man went over. A woman got 55 cents. Cooper spun 50 cents, so he had to go again. He almost went over, but he ended up with 80 cents, meaning he was headed to the showcase.

On his showcase, he got a $4,000 home gym, a trip to Hilton Head, S.C., and a new car – a Fiat. He decided to bid on it. He knew they gave away “bottom-line cars, not fully loaded.” He thought the value was around $24,000, but didn’t want to go over so he bid $22,500. It ended up being worth $26,000.

The other finalist bid $28,000 on a trip and a boat. Cooper thought he had lost because it was a really nice boat.

But his opponent overbid, making Cooper the winner. “The boat must have been cheaper than I thought,” he said.

He said some people have called him lucky before. When he was in the Navy, he played bingo after a six-month cruise and won $5,000.

But this had to top that. Cooper said the experience was so much more than he expected.

“I was in awe the whole time,” he said. “My buddies said I looked like I was in shock. You watch it on TV everyday, but you never think you’ll be onstage.”