By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – When news leaked out in St. Tammany Parish in early 2003 that a local resident had been picked for the red-hot “Survivor” television reality show it was treated like the biggest story of the year.
After all, Survivor had become the talk around every office water cooler, so to speak, with the show setting the standard for excitement and interest during the beginning stages of popularity for TV reality shows.
John Raymond, a pastor from Slidell, was soon the man every area media outlet was trying to link up with, after it leaked out that he was the first St. Tammany resident to make the show.
“I learned there are something like 60,000 people every year who try to make it on the show,” he said. “So you need to have something special to catch their attention when you apply. Fortunately, I did.”
Raymond, a born-and-raised Louisiana boy from Springfield, made sure to get the attention of producer Mark Burnett and host Jeff Probst when he sent in a video showing him catching a 4-foot alligator in the Louisiana swamp.
“Everything about me was a Louisiana boy, and I think that is what they liked,” Raymond said.
Raymond eventually was chosen for season five, the Thailand show, but had to wait a couple of years to get his chance. He remembers seeing a promo seeking applicants for the show when he watched the Super Bowl in 2002.
“When I saw the promotion for the show that year, I remember thinking, ‘hey, they are playing my game and I didn’t get invited!’ That’s because I loved the outdoors, I was an athlete in school, my profession has always involved a social aspect,” he said. “I’ve always been very competitive and as soon as I saw that promo, I wanted to sign up.”
Raymond went home that night from his Super Bowl party and immediately went online to get information. He sent in his video to apply for season three and was called the first year.
“When they called, I thought I had made it. But then they never followed up with me, and then I never got a call for season four either,” he said.
He re-applied for season five and was called, going through two rounds of interviews before being chosen for the show.
Raymond said he remembers how popular the show was since all those chosen to play must sign a confidentiality agreement to not tell details of behind-the-scenes production work.
Additionally, all contestants were instructed that they could not even “make eye contact with any other contestants” from the time they met at the airport in the United States and flew on the same plane to Thailand.
“They want no one to have an unfair advantage so you cannot talk to any other contestant until the game actually begins,” he said. “The entire flight you have to keep your eyes down, and not make any connection with other contestants.”
The show made all contestants use alias names for the flight, with Raymond having the name “Graham Duncan.” Once in Thailand, he said they had three days being taught basic survival techniques such as how to boil water, start a fire and what plants or insects not to eat.
“I was very confident,” Raymond said. “I’m always reading people anyway and I knew I had a lot of survival techniques from growing up in Louisiana.”
But in the end, Raymond believes his “Louisiana boy” reputation, and also that of being a pastor, were the things that did him in, and had him voted off the very first tribal counsel.
“Once we got together for the first show, Jeff Probst made us all say our name and what we did for a living,” he said. “That never happened before and has never happened since. So when I said I was a pastor, everyone picked up on that. Even when we landed on the island, one of the people immediately yelled for the pastor to lead a prayer, which I had to do.”
Raymond’s outdoor skills also showed up immediately when the contestants were put into a boat and told to row to shore.
“No one even knew how to row, so I ended up telling them how to do it,” he said. “Looking back on it, I should have left them going in circles.”
In the first day, Raymond was the only one who knew how to build a hut, the only one who could start a fire, one of only two who could follow a map to their camp, and finally he also knew how to catch crabs for food. As much as he didn’t want to become a leader of the group, it was happening quicker than he wanted.
“I knew that I didn’t want to stand out at the beginning, and by the time we went to tribal that night, I was already known as ‘the pastor.’ So as soon as someone started saying, ‘vote out the pastor,’ everyone jumped on it since they didn’t have anyone else they recognized,” he said.
Raymond remembers the tribal counsel and hearing his name get mentioned once, twice, then three times.
“When I heard the third one, I was thinking, ‘oh no, this isn’t good,’” he recalled.
Raymond said that you must commit to being gone for seven weeks when you sign up for the show. And for those voted out, they go to a place known as “The Ponderosa,” which is a resort-type setting. He was forbidden contractually from revealing what, if anything, they are paid for their time, but he simply said, “CBS and Mark Burnett treat you very, very well.”
“When you are voted out, CBS treats you so well the whole time you are there,” he said. “It was still an awesome experience since they give you lots of opportunities for fun while you wait for the game to finish. I got to ride an elephant, go bunji jumping, do other interesting things in Thailand that I’ll never forget.”
Raymond said that Probst told him he was “stunned I was voted off at the beginning and that I had been his pick to win the show. That’s because I have all that Louisiana stuff I grew up with and it’s perfect for the show.”
Raymond said he still loves being in the “Survivor fraternity” and gets called with Mandeville’s Lisa Keiffer to be part of national fundraisers where other reality stars are involved. But would he play the game again, if given that opportunity?
“If they called me today, I would be packed and ready to leave in an hour,” he said. “I wanted to get to play the challenges since I think I could have gone a long way if I had survived. But now I’ve heard they are considering a show of anyone who was the first person voted off.
“The main thing I learned from my experience is that you cannot afford to miss any conversations around camp,” he said. “You need to be around anyone who is talking, as much as possible. When they started tossing out my name, everyone else went along with it since it wasn’t them.”