Maybe it's something in the water, especially in Middletown.
Whatever the reason, yet another Rhode Islander will be a contestant on Survivor, the hit CBS reality show, now in its fifth incarnation.
This time, our contender is Helen Glover,
47, a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy who works as a water survival instructor at the Naval Education and Training Center.
According to Glover's bio, she was born in Honolulu, daughter of a U.S. Marine, and moved almost every year while growing up. Besides Rhode Island and Hawaii, she has lived in Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Louisiana.
Glover lives in Middletown with her husband, Jim. She has three children, Katherine, 18, Matthew, a 28-year-old captain in the Marines, and stepdaughter Erin, 30.
Previous jobs have included lifeguard, caterer and waitress. Glover describes herself in her CBS bio as "assertive, competitive and quick-witted."
Those traits will probably come in handy on Survivor, in which contestants are pitted against one another in a variety of physical and mental challenges while they vote each other out of the game. Last one still in wins $1 million.
This time around, Survivor is set on Koh Tarutao, an island off the coast of Thailand. The show begins Sept. 19 at 8 p.m., although the episodes have already been taped.
(A Navy source reports that Glover lost 35 pounds while she was on the island.)
Rhode Island seems to have a particularly strong connection to Survivor.
Richard Hatch,
also of Middletown, was the very first winner when the show first aired in the summer of 2000 and became a national phenemenon.
Hatch was not exactly a fountain of information during a very brief intervew yesterday:
Does he know Glover? No comment.
What is it about Survivor and Middletown? No comment.
Has he sold his house in Middletown, on the market for $1.25 million. No comment.
Hatch did say he'll be doing some commentary about Survivor: Thailand, but wouldn't say for whom. He did mention that he'll be featured in a show on cable channel TNN called Fame for 15: Extraordinary Journeys that will air Sunday night at 10:30.
The Ocean State's other Survivor star was Elisabeth Filarski,
who didn't win but did make it into the final four on Survivor's second season, set in the Australian outback.
Filarski grew up in Cranston, although she was living in Massachusetts when her episodes aired. Now Filarski hosts a show called The Look for Less, on cable's Style Network. Earlier this summer, she married former Boston College quarterback Tim Hasselbeck at St. Mary's Church in Cranston.
