WATCH: Guinness World Record holder from Havertown on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’

Growing up in Villanova, Stephen Clarke never really got a chance to carve a pumpkin. "I was somewhere in the middle of nine kids," he says. "I maybe got to clean up the seeds if I was lucky." But when his own children reached trick or treat age, Clarke discovered he had a talent for creating Jack-O'-Lanterns. Remarkable talent.

He first shattered the record for carving pumpklns in 2000, and has since lowered it to 16.47 seconds. (That means producing recognizable eyes, ears, nose and mouth.) It got him in the Guinness Book of World Records, but it didn't do much else for his life, except make his house in Havertown a popular pilgrimage each October when he puts out 20 or 30 examples of his work. "I'm a star for one month out of the year," he says.

Clark, 55, has been a teacher at the Rosemont School of the Holy Child for 37 years. In fact, he checks in on the phone from a camping trip in Maryland with 6th graders.

Then out of the blue Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contacted Clarke to participate in this week's Guniness World Records edition. You can see him taking the challenge with host Terry Crews on Thursday and Friday (2 p.m. on 6ABC). Also taking part was Jeopardy! juggernaut Ken Jennings who will be on Friday and Monday.

Clarke took a number of family members up to the taping in Stamford, Conn. Including his 85-year-old mother, Barbara. He's forbidden from revealing how he fared on the show, but says that's immaterial to his mom whom he describes as "a huge Jeopardy! fan". "I could have won the million dollars," he says, "and she'd still remember it as the day she got to meet Ken Jennings."

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