"I feel like he's probably in the building somewhere," Ken Jennings said in a video released on Jeopardy!'s Facebook. He was reflecting on the life of Alex Trebek who died from pancreatic cancer just one year ago.
As the Jeopardy! family and fans reach the one-year mark, one thing is for sure, Trebek is greatly missed.
In the video, Jennings talked about what Trebek meant to him and shared a story about a gift he received from Trebek's wife, Jean Currivan Trebek, following the iconic game show host's death.
"It's hard not to talk about him in the present tense," Jennings said in the video, saying he can feel his presence in the Jeopardy! studio.
Jennings will be hosting Jeopardy! starting this week while Mayim Bialik is out, he said in a tweet from his official Twitter account.
"Always an honor and a real joy to be back where it all started," Jennings said in the tweet, also cracking a joke that he hopes he's not too rusty as it's been a while.
As a former champion of Jeopardy! who has guest-hosted back in February, Jennings is in for three weeks as host of the show, USA Today reports. The first show is Monday, exactly one year after the day Trebek died.
Jennings said at the time when he was a guest host on the show, it had only been a few weeks after Trebek had died.
"It was a really rough time," he said.
When he arrived at the studio, one of the producers handed him a small box and inside were a pair of Trebek's cufflinks that he wore on the show before. It was a gift from Trebek's wife, Jean.
Jennings wore them on Monday's episode and said Trebek's cufflinks are the only cufflinks he owns.
"They're kind of a good luck charm for me here," Jennings said at the end of the video.