Natalie White took a chance when she quit her job in Van Buren earlier this year so she could battle it out on Survivor: Samoa, the CBS television reality show in its 20th season.
It paid off. On Sunday, White, 26, won the competition, which was filmed for 39 days last summer in the South Pacific.
With it, she also won $1 million.
“It was a huge gamble,” she said. “It was a scary gamble. It was a job that I loved. But big risks equal big rewards.
“You get a once in a lifetime opportunity, you’re crazy not to take it.”
White, who grew up in Bryant, had worked for Teva Pharmaceuticals USA for about 15 months. She sold pharmaceuticals to clinics from Bentonville to Mountain Home and Russellville to Hot Springs.
The Survivor shows begin with 20 contestants stranded in the wilderness. They must survive on limited resources available to them. One by one, they are eliminated from the competition by votes from the other contestants, until the end when three are left. Then, some of those who have been exiled are brought back to decide who wins the $1 million.
White said her day began at 4 a.m. Monday with interviews. She was in Los Angeles to watch the final episode Sunday night. The first episode of the 20th season aired Sept. 17.
“I had to watch the whole season and not tell anybody how I did,” she said by telephone. “Actually, I didn’t know who won. I knew I had a one-in-three shot. I wasn’t going to believe it until Iheard my name called.”
White won by a vote of 7-2 from the panel of former Survivors. Texas oilman Russell Hantz, White’s closest ally during the game, grumbled to several media outlets that he was robbed of the castaway crown.
“That’s what I hear,” said White. “I won fair and square 7 to 2. ... People will always underestimate me, which is fine. That worked out to my benefit in this game. We will be friends in real life. We really will. You don’t share this kind of experience with everybody.”
White, who stands 5-foot-2, lost about 20 pounds during the competition, hitting a low of about 85 pounds while in Samoa. She thinks the island diet had something to do with that.
“I killed a rat and ate it,” she said. “It’s the first thingI’ve ever killed. I ate lizards. I ate snails.”
White said she’s back up to about 108 pounds after being back in Arkansas for about five months.
White said the competition to survive was as strenuous mentally as it was physically. Sleep deprivation was a major obstacle.
“It rained for four or five days straight,” she said. “It was freezing at nighttime. It was brutal, brutal. ... I’m a lot more bubbly and outgoing and all that, but it probably didn’t show as much out there because you’re just so miserable. It was a miserable but incredible experience.”
But, White said, she’s a stronger person for having survived Samoa.
“It’ll change your life for the better,” she said of the competition, not referring to the $1 million prize.
White said she missed her boyfriend, Justin Thomas of Van Buren, who is also a pharmaceutical sales representative, during her stint in Samoa.
White graduated from Bryant High School and attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro for two years. She earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Central Arkansas in 2005. She is the daughter of Ken and Diane Powell of Bryant. White’s mother is a nurse, and her father writes accounting software.
White said she’s not sure yet what she’ll do with the money. She’ll have to pay taxes on it, so she plans to hire an accountant to help with that.
“I have the check,” she said. “It’s in my bag. It’s crazy.”
White said she also wants to take a vacation. The trip to Samoa was her first one outside the United States.
White said she plans to stay in Arkansas but she doesn’t know what the future may bring.
“At this point, I’m definitely planning on staying in Arkansas, but if other opportunities arise, I’ll look into it,” she said.
Mick Trimming, a Los Angeles doctor, was the third finalist.
White said she’ll be flying home to Arkansas today for Christmas.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 12/22/2009