CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The Levendusky family made their submission video for Family Feud mostly as a joke – that was until they got a call back for a follow-up interview. Now, they’re about to be on TV with a stint on Family Feud coming up this month.

The Levenduskys are a busy family of eight who moved to Clarksville over the summer.

Mom Heidi is a substitute teacher for Clarksville-Montgomery County Schools and a former music teacher. Dad Derek founded Grace Life Church in Avon, New York, and plans to plant a church here in Clarksville. He is also a contemporary Christian musician and the assistant varsity wrestling coach at Montgomery Central High School.

Grace, their oldest daughter, is a musician. Joye and Esther are both college students and wrestling competitors. The three school-aged children – Reese, Audrey and Jack – have also taken on some of the talents and passions of their parents by their love of wrestling and music. This eccentric dynamic gave the family an advantage in their interview.

Family Feud

The family was on vacation in Rhode Island when they got the idea to sign up for Family Feud.

“The go-to whenever we go on vacation and we are in the hotel and we don’t know what to watch is just to throw the Game Show Network on,” Grace said. “Esther found out how to sign up from her phone.”

Due to COVID-19, the game show was accepting remote video submissions in the summer of 2020 when the Levendusky family signed up. Derek said they took the opportunity to record right then.

Being a family with a musical background, the Levenduskys conducted a three-part harmony of the Bill Withers song “Lean on Me” in their audition submission.

Three months later, Derek received an email from one of the producers stating they wanted to do a follow-up on Zoom.

“Joye was in college at St. Louis, Grace was in Rochester, and the rest of us were in Avon. So, via Zoom, we basically did a mock show,” Heidi said. “We thought ‘Well, that was fun, but what are the chances we’re actually going to get through the final round?'”

“All of a sudden one day, I got an email and it says, ‘We want you to come to Atlanta,'” Derek said.

Their team consisted of Heidi and Derek, along with the three oldest kids: Grace, Joye and Esther. Derek said they were chosen out of about 18,000 families.

Being on the show

Under normal circumstances, the family would have been performing in front of a live studio audience, but due to COVID-19 restrictions, it was only them and the other families, which made for an exhausting but interesting experience.

One of the challenges the Levenduskys faced was how tuned in they had to be to their surroundings.

“The TV version of Family Feud is a soft toss for the audience,” Derek said. “It wasn’t as easy to wrap your mind around the context of what was happening with the game.”

This was a sharp contrast to the extra task they had of being an audience member because they had the advantage of being able to see and hear the game as it was being played. Keeping their energy up proved to be difficult.

“You had to be high-energy the whole day,” Heidi said.

“It was so fun being in-studio and meeting Steve Harvey. He’s a great guy and so good at what he does. It was also tiring as we were in the audience while other families were on stage because we had to keep the energy up, clapping and laughing,” Derek said.

Derek said he enjoyed a funny interaction with Harvey.

“One time we weren’t laughing as hard as Steve wanted us to, so he stopped the show and walked in front of the stage. He’s like, ‘Look, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m really good,'” Derek said.

Grace said that after insistent clapping and wooing, their family and the other families involved felt closer when it was all said and done.

“When you look out in the audience, instead of seeing an audience, you see some friends,” Grace said.

The family will soon get to relive the experience: Their show will air on WUXP My30 on Friday, Nov. 12, and Friday, Nov. 19, at 6:30 p.m. The time is subject to change. If you need additional information visit the Family Feud website.