EDITOR’S NOTE — The following is the second of a two-part feature on local  “Survivor: Gabon” contestant Susie Smith. Please refer to part one in Thursday’s Press for more information.

Call it the “Million Dollar Cookie.”

Susie Smith didn’t make many strategic missteps during her 39-day run on “Survivor: Gabon — Earth’s Last Eden,” which is how she made it to the final three out of 18 contestants on the popular reality television show. However, commenting on the “Great Cookie Controversy” is one move the 47-year-old Charles  City woman wishes today she could take back.

“That cost you a million bucks,” Smith’s husband, Todd, teased her.

“It did, it did cost me in the end. But at the time I didn’t know that,” said Susie, a wife, mother, hair stylist and para educator who after four auditions landed a coveted spot on the widely popular “Survivor” series. From June 14 until Aug. 4, she and 17 other contestants from across the U.S. competed for rewards and immunity from elimination in a game of physical skills, strategic socializing and pure luck — all the while having to survive with very little food and comforts in the wilds of Gabon, Africa.

Last Sunday, the show’s finale was shown live from Los Angeles, Calif., where the votes were revealed  on which of the three finalists would be declared  the winner of “Survivor: Gabon” and who would take home the $1 million first place prize. All 18 of the contestants were reunited on stage, but the focus was on Smith, Bob Crowley of Portland, Maine, and Jessica “Sugar” Kiper of Brooklyn, N.Y. Only they had survived the 15-episode ordeal without being voted off by their fellow contestants, which means they were the only ones left who could win. Whoever received the most votes from a jury of their Survivor peers was the $1 million winner.

The first of seven jury votes drawn by host Jeff Probst was for Bob. The second was for Susie, drawing cheers back home at a gathering of friends and family in the Charles City Middle School auditorium who were watching on a big-screen TV. The third vote was also for Susie ... as was the fourth. 

Suddenly, she was one away from $1 million with three votes remaining.

“I couldn’t believe what was happening,” remarked Todd, who along with son Trent was sitting in the show’s audience.

“Up 3-1, I got nervous, because this could really happen,” admitted Susie. “At the same time, I really did know in my heart it was going to be Bob. I was so overwhelmed that three people actually voted for me, though, that I was crying.”

Crowley, of course, did end up receiving the final three votes and was crowned the winner. 

“It was instant relief when I knew it was Bob,” Susie stated. “He was very deserving. But I felt I was, too.  The realism was bitter sweet because I was so close, but second is pretty awesome too. That’s a pretty good consolation prize to take home.”

While she missed out on the $1 million first prize, Susie was awarded $100,000 for finishing second.

“Sugar was third and made $70,000 and Matty (Whitmore) got $65,000 for fourth... it went all the way on down to Michelle (Chase), who was  the very first person to be voted off. She got $2,500, so everybody got something,” Susie reported. “Every contestant also received a $10,000 check at the finale — they want to make sure that they compensate you for your time gone from work or whatever — so I think I did OK for myself.” 

She also returned home this week to a hero’s welcome in Charles City, where the students and staff at Lincoln Elementary School where she teaches held a rally on Thursday in her honor — complete with homemade “immunity necklaces” like on the show and a card house building challenge like the one Susie won on “Survivor.”

“Susie! Susie! Susie!” was the chant that rang out loud and proud from the Lincoln student body.

Game plan

The goal of “Survivor” is to out wit, out play and out last the competition. Her game plan going into the game, Susie said, was to stay under the radar and ruffle as few feathers as possible.

“I kept telling myself to be an Indian, not a chief. Do not cause any conflict, because I knew if you did those were the people who don’t stay around very long,” she explained. “Not causing conflict was a big part of my game plan.

“I think only twice I really got into a conflict situation. Once with Randy (Bailey) when he told me to shut the f--- up and then one time Crystal (Cox) snapped at me. I refused to get into  it with her, though, because I knew she really liked me and was my ally.”

Susie said she would play the game in increments — three days at a time.

“My objective was just to stay in for three days and do what I had to do, as long as I wasn’t disrespectful and nasty to people,” she remarked. “You can stab them in the back strategically, that’s part of the whole game, but you don’t have to be mean and nasty about it.”

For awhile, she admitted she was content to ride the coat tails of others, especially early on. 

“Marcus (Lehman), who is a wonderful young man, said he would never throw a challenge. That told me he would win it for me and the team, if necessary. He is 28, strong and brilliant. A lot of them were young and strong, and here I was this old woman. They all completely underestimated me and I knew that. They thought she is just incapable. I played that up a little. I would talk about that in camp that I couldn’t compete physically with them.”

She noted that she really tried at all the challenges, even the ones she didn’t fare as well in.  

“I remember in the snake challenge when we had to carry that 200 pound (fake) snake around, I ran 2-1/2 laps with them and Randy told me to get out and I dropped out. But I could have run another lap, if I had to. I had it in me,” said Susie. “The big thing is I wasn’t afraid to go up against Bob. I know he was a good guy and this wizard when it came to the outdoors, but you shouldn’t think any less of yourself ... and I didn’t.

“I remember in talks with other tribe members when we would go off and strategize, they were afraid to go up against Bob because he was such a good guy. But this game is a social game, it’s about your character and what you are like, so I knew I was just as kind as Bob was. Maybe I didn’t do as well in the physical challenges, but I think I won when it counted —  like the fire challenge and the very last one for immunity building the big house of cards.”

Some people, Susie commented, think it’s all scripted out in the show, “but it’s not.”

“It’s all eye contact and socializing, secret meetings and winky winks,” she said. “A lot more strategizing went on than what they showed on TV. So much so that they can’t show all of it. We all knew going into tribal council, for example, that we were going to blindside Kenny (Hoang) and that Randy would  be playing a false idol. It may have looked on TV like it was a last-second decision, but we knew because we had all talked and agreed — except, of course, for Kenny and Randy.”

Susie added that she felt horrible about Randy being tricked into playing a phony immunity idol. 

“I think Bob thought it was going to be cute and funny, but he didn’t know Sugar was going to take it to such an extreme at tribal council (laughing at and mocking Randy),” Susie commented. “There was a moment right before tribal council when I wanted to tell Randy what was going on. He still would have been voted out, but he wouldn’t have fallen for the fake idol. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have voted against me in the end.”

Asked what she considered her best strategic move of the game, Susie replied, “helping to take Marcus out, because I knew if I didn’t take him out, it was going to hurt me. He was the biggest threat, because Marcus was a great strategist, very diplomatic. He never wanted to make any promises. He should have lied to me instead of saying he was only going to take me to the top 6. I wanted to be in the top 3.

Fellow survivors

Her Midwestern roots and work ethic, Susie feels, paid off big while trying to survive over in Africa.

“Midwesterners are more laid back and I think that helped on the show, versus those used to a faster paced life. Because things didn’t move as fast there. There was not a whole lot to do outside of the challenges,” she reported. “I was never bored, but Corrine (Kaplan) or Matty or Marcus kept complaining they were bored. I had no problem staying busy, I loved to help with the cooking, I was the one to cut all the food up and divide it out, and I loved to clean. I made a broom from a big long piece of bark split at the bottom. I swept the camp each day and I constantly collected wood. Bob was amazed that I was always working, often telling me to take a break.”

A tolerance for Midwestern weather also proved useful.

“It didn’t really rain on us. The first two days there was a real heavy mist and the rest  of the time it never rained,” remarked Susie. “A lot of the contestants, though, didn’t really care for the cool weather at night. It got down to 50-55 degrees ... that’s not cold in Iowa. I hardly ever got cold. Then in the day it would get up to 90 or so, but I didn’t think that was overly hot either. I’m from Iowa. We get every season here, so that was something that probably helped me out.”

Asked who struggled the most with the weather, Susie said it was Dan (Kay from Boston).

“He was probably the worst, he had heat stroke a couple of times. A couple of the girls also had some trouble with the heat,” said Susie. “The cold weather at night bothered them more, like Matty who is from California. He was freezing all the time. Michelle barely had any clothes and was freezing at night. I had a little more cushion on me than those skinny little girls, so I was better off.” 

Still, between the heat, physical demands and shortage of food, Susie came back home 23 pounds lighter than when she left.

“I sewed a lot. I had to sew up my swim suit because of the weight I lost and I sewed Marcus’ pants that he ripped. I don’t know how many bags I fixed up,” she said, noting she used 10 pound fish line to sew with. “Bob took a knife and slanted 10-pound fish line and it almost felt like a needle. I sewed Crystal’s dress a lot, too, because she lost so much weight.”

Questioned about some of her fellow survivors, Susie had the following observations:

• Crystal, the Olympic gold medalist who struggled with any of the physical challenges —  “She is literally all muscle, I don’t think there’s a drop of fat on her. So her body needed a lot of protein and she ended up on Fang and didn’t get any food, maybe five handfuls of rice, and that just killed her. She was actually having blackouts. Days 11-20, she and Kenny were having blackouts because they didn’t have enough food and were exhausted. She had to muster everything she had just to finish the challenges.

“Randy was the worst in giving her grief about being an Olympian. He was harder on her than anybody. I would come to her defense, because her speciality is in running fast and she eats well when she trains. When you don’t have any energy and no food in your system, it was really hard on her.”

• Bob, the 57-year-old professor — “Bob was happy he was just there and enjoying everything. He is amazing in all he can do and how he kept winning challenge after challenge. He kept calling me Maria at first. Marcus got upset over it, but he didn’t mean nothing and I just let it roll off my back. Midwesterners are like that. He wasn’t trying to hurt me and apologized. Later on he began calling m Suzie-Q. He was so cool.

“I remember Bob and I were trying to figure out how to best pour the boiled water into our canteens and I came up with the idea of using one of the huge leaves and fold it into a funnel. He told me, ‘I knew that’s why you were on Survivor.’”

• Kenny, the video game master — “I liked Kenny and he and Crystal were definitely big chiefs when it came to strategizing. I didn’t realize how sneaky he was, though, until after watching the show on TV.

• Randy and Corinne, easily the nastiest and meanest of the survivors — “I tried to find the good in them. I think they exaggerated it some, but they were really like that. Corrine could just be mean to people, and I couldn’t understand that. Her exterior is very hard.

“Randy is very in your face, but like I said in the show I really think he is a man who is hurting and who doesn’t know how to deal with the loss of his beloved dog. I don’t think he’s genuinely a bad guy or means to hurt people, but it’s not an act.”

Susie added that there were no real big blowout fights between anyone on the show. 

“The producers don’t allow that sort of thing. Crystal and Randy got into it a little, as did Sugar and Corrine. They were bickering for a long time. But there were no real knock-downs,” she reported.

Watching the show it was obvious, however, that there were  some hard feelings and some outright disdain between some of the players.

“We’re all adult enough to know it’s just a game and you are supposed to lie and fool them,” noted Susie. “I know Bob felt terrible and couldn’t look Randy in the eye after the fake idol. It’s hard to look at someone you voted out. I wasn’t really nasty to any of them, so I didn’t have a problem looking at anyone on the jury. For me, the hardest was when I voted Marcus off, because we had an alliance, but I also knew I didn’t want to be at the bottom of Kota’s top six.”

Randy and the cookie

The final tie-breaking vote at the end was said to have been cast by Randy — who had made no attempt to hide his disdain for most of his fellow survivors during the show, including each of the three finalists. 

In Susie’s case, it apparently was a chocolate chip cookie that ultimately lost her Randy’s vote.

“I didn’t realize he was that upset with me,” she said. “We were in the hut having this two hour conversation about the cookie ordeal and I shared my perspective that it was just a cookie and no big deal. That was a bad move on my part. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.”

The so-called cookie ordeal took place in episode 10, when Randy won a plate of cookies to be shared with his tribe. Sugar initially turned down a cookie when he offered it to her. When it came down to the final cookie, Randy again offered it to Sugar instead of keeping one for himself. She took it and promptly gave it to Matty, who had already had one. Taking it as an insult, Randy fumed over the incident for some time, prompting the discussion in the hut, and was against Susie the rest of the way.

As a result, many people have blamed the cookie for Susie’s loss. During Thursday’s rally at Lincoln School, the staff presented her with a giant cookie that read, “It’s Just A Cookie!” She takes it in good humor, though, saying she was thrilled and thankful just to get as far as she did.

“How many cookies am I going to get this Christmas? A lot, I hope,” she said with a big smile. “Randy’s probably had some delivered already.” 

Another gag gift she is seeing a lot of right now are funny-shaped playing cards — the kind that make it extremely difficult to build a house of cards with. That was the challenge she had to win at the end in Africa to capture the final immunity necklace and avoid almost certain elimination from the game.

“I really knew I was going to be voted off at that point. They were going to take me out,” Susie stated.

The last four contestants had to build a house of cards 8 feet tall (or be at the highest point after 30 minutes), using giant playing cards. With 5 minutes remaining, her creation was at 7 feet and she gambled on stopping there rather than risking a collapse with more cards. The move paid off.

“I kept asking Jeff how much time was left,” she recalled. “I remember thinking I should go again (adding cards), when I saw Sugar’s fall and she built it right back up again, but held off hoping time would run out. I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’ve got this,’ because It was so surreal that I made it to the top three.”

Elimination not all bad

If you ever wondered what happens to contestants voted off the game, Susie said elimination has its perks, too.

“The people voted off get cleaned up and well fed, they get taken to resorts in area,” she reported. “A lot of first ones voted off went to a nearby island, because no one went home until after the entire show was taped. Once it got down to the jury people, they were separated and put in a Ponderosa resort closer to where we were and were well taken care off.

“I can’t say enough about CBS and Mark Burnett Productions, they were absolutely wonderful to all of us, very respectful of us and treated us very well. Those voted off really were treated to mini vacations —they would go on safaris and rode on a helicopter 10 times more than I did. They got to go on lots of little adventures, so it’s not so bad to get voted off. They treat you very well.”

Early on, Susie herself wasn’t feeling very well.

“The first few days I was there, I threw up a lot, which I’m sure had to do with no food in my stomach and taking the malaria medication. That upset my stomach,” she said. “I was hurting, it was hard. Your body has to adjust. And I was dehydrated. I tried to drink a canteen of water a day, at least, and I was still dehydrated. I came home and my skin didn’t feel quite right. It took a while to return to normal.”

For the most part, Susie noted, the survivors were really on their own in the jungle. There were no luxury trailers or tents just off camera, or port-a-potties to use. There wasn’t protection from wild animals or an ambulance standing by on scene if someone got hurt.

Just the producers and sound people were around. Medics were available, but off in another camp,” Susie explained. “The producers had 9-1-1 walkie talkies to call for help, but the base camp for the Fang Tribe was like 15-20 minutes away and Kota was more like 45 minutes away, so you really are on your own.”

She reported that Randy was the only one who really ever needed medical attention after he split his head open the first day in the jungle.

“It happened at night and I bet he bled there for 30 minutes before the medics arrived,” Susie commented. “He ended up getting six stitches.”

Glad to be home

As exciting an adventure as it was and as thrilled and proud she was to have reached her goal of making the top three, Susie said she was ready to come home on Aug. 4.

“The first thing wanted to do was eat greasy tacos and take a nice hot shower — after hugging my son, of course,” she remarked. “I also wanted to just lay in my bed. Oh, I missed my bed. We literally slept on the ground the whole time. Those mats were nothing.

“Then, it was right back into Mom mode, making tacos and baking cookies for my son.

Contestants had to sign an agreement prohibiting them from revealing anything about what happened in “Survivor: Gabon” before the season finale aired, and Susie stayed mum on the subject, despite her chance to become a millionaire. Even son Trent didn’t know.

 “I finally told Todd, though, because I had to tell somebody,” she admitted. “He kept it a secret, though.”

It wasn’t easy, though.

“All of a sudden reality hits that my wife could be a millionaire ... it could change our life completely. Every option runs through your brain what can happen,” her husband commented.

Even without the $1 million, the Smiths know life will never be the same after “Survivor.” Susie has already been deluged with interview and speaking appearance requests.

“I know this is huge and that it will open a lot of doors for me, but I still want to do my volunteer things,” she said. “I don’t have to exhaust myself, though. I can say no to some things.

“I love the (Survivor Susie) T-shirt fundraiser (a relative started) and hope this is going to help bring the Charles City High School Band a new trailer. We are so in desperate need of one. New uniforms, too. There are also some charities I want to help with, but my family is still the most important thing to me and comes first.”

In the meantime, she is having fun sharing some of her keepsakes she brought back with her, including the Rite of Passage map used on the show by the final four contestants, as well as a map on how to get to Exile Island and several of the clue parchments used on “Survivor.”

“We all tried to take something home with us. Bob collected everything ... if I have four parchments, you can bet Bob has at least eight or more,” Susie chuckled. “It was really fun and exciting to try to take a little piece of the game and Africa back with you.”