Former Press Your Luck host Peter Tomarken died in a plane crash yesterday off the coast of Santa Monica. Bummer.

To honor his passing, here's my favorite Press Your Luck story:

"In 1984 an Ohio man put together an astounding run on the television game show Press Your Luck. He did so by memorizing the sequences by which the various prize squares lit up on the game board, allowing him to time his button presses to coincide with the lights' stopping on the most advantageous squares. By hitting 35 such squares in a row, he was able to accumulate the largest win in the history of that show, and he did it all in under an hour. When the effort became too fatiguing, he passed his remaining spins to another contestant rather than risk losing his accumulated winnings to a mis-timed press of the plunger. By hitting these types of squares again and again, he racked up a total of $110,237 before finally relinquishing his turn."

[More, from Snopes]

In case you were wondering, my list of favorite Press Your Luck stories is a mile long.