Yes, I did just get back from the "Survivor" auditions and yes, you are staring at a picture of a dead hamster. Ahh...reality TV. Dead hamsters aside, the "Survivor" hopeful featured above was one of my favorite contestants of the day. Laura Cecere, 22, is from Gatlinburg, Tenn. She traveled all the way to C-town with her sister, Julia, 18, and a screech owl named Petey. (The dead hamster was his lunch.) Both sisters are wildlife program coordinators for the nonprofit American Eagle Foundation, a Tennessee-based organization that educates the public about birds of prey.
This guy, meanwhile, was undoubtedly the contestant who generated the most buzz of the day. Enrique Salis, 49, is a Columbus resident who by day is a training coordinator for Cessna. He also apparently likes to dress in armor. Believe it or not, I watched as he did the splits during his audition. FYI: He got his helmet at TJ Maxx. No joke. I think it was originally a salad bowl.
I know it's a bad pic, but check out the guy in the blazer and tie. He gets the "wow" award. It's 70-year-old Wayne Corless of Auburn, Ala. He's a former Air Force officer and civil servant who told me he once ate a potentially developed duck egg, also known as balut. Read about it here.
Chris Shelnutt, 42, attracted my attention immediately. She's wearing pearls and her Easter hat. A Southern belle's armor, if you will. The Columbus woman's reason for auditioning: "I think that they need a small-town Southern woman who is much tougher than she might appear at first." You go, girl!
Body builder and fitness trainer Bena Klier, 38, of Lagrange was definitely among the the afternoon's most in-shape hopefuls. I kind of feared she'd bend me in half as she warmed up with the fitness elastics shown in the pic above. If "American Gladiators" ever comes here, she should be the first in line.
Of these five people, who do you think would stay on the island longest?
Finally, another cool auditioner I met was Miranda Jones, 24, a manager at Little Caesars on Milgen Road. The Columbus woman left her work shift to audition, motivated in part by the call-back she received when she auditioned in the past for MTV's "The Real World." That call-back didn't lead anywhere, but with luck her "Survivor" run will turn out differently.
