Known as "Kentucky Joe," Rodger Bingham was on Survivor: Australian Outback in 2001. The Crittenden farmer was the 11th person (out of 16) voted out of the Outback. He is also, quite possibly, the nicest person you'll ever meet. WHY DO YOU THINK THEY PICKED YOU? I think they were looking for somebody from rural America, and I think they look for certain personalities and certain types of characters, and I live on a farm and go to church and I've been married for quite a few years, and I think they were looking for somebody like that. I think I came along at the right time. WHAT WAS YOUR WORST TV MOMENT? To me there really wasn't, but I've had a lot of people comment about when I was on David Letterman. Of course I was very nervous about being on there because he was talking about us being losers. I had looked at Survivor's ratings and saw they were higher than The Late Show, and I was ready to tell him that we were the winners and he was the loser, but he never did bring that up to me. But he did get me on a joke. He asked how do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky - Louisville. Of course the capital of Kentucky is Frankfort. It didn't bother me that bad, I can take a joke. As soon as I said Louisville though, I knew I'd done it. WAS IT LIFE-CHANGING? Without a doubt. You know, I live on a farm out in Northern Kentucky and I've lived on a farm all my life. I'm still doing some Survivor stuff. It's gone on much, much longer than I ever dreamed it would have. I'd never been hungry in my life. I've been very fortunate, but there's a lot of people out there who are hungry. It gave me a different perspective when I see people wasting food, and we certainly are blessed. I'd never been on a mission trip before, but I've done three since getting back, and I find myself wanting to do more of that. WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? I'm working for Kentucky Department of Agriculture, speaking at different places. I go around to virtually any type of event you can think of - Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, the Beef Growers Association, schools - and I spend about 70 percent of the time telling Survivor stories. I don't have any trouble talking to a thousand kids in a gymnasium, and they still find that show very interesting. Then the other 30 percent of the time I spend talking about staying in good physical condition, staying off drugs and staying off alcohol and I talk to them about smoking. I tell them smoking causes cancer, and I'm very blunt about it. And I can tie all that in to Survivor, and they absolutely love that. WHAT'S YOUR ADVICE TO OTHERS WHO'D LIKE TO BE ON A REALITY SHOW? I think it's important that you're in good physical condition. Keeping up with people who are 30 years younger than you are, you just can't do it. So you gotta prepare yourself mentally, going through things you've never done in life, and it's not all fun and games. Being extremely hungry is not fun. Jumping off that cliff was not fun and I'd just learned to swim a week before I left for Australia. It was really the hardest I thing I did in my life, hands down. You've got to go into the whole thing just being yourself. Don't try to be something that you're not. Don't give them answers that you think they're wanting to hear. You tell them exactly the way you feel about it. They are masters at telling if someone is putting something over on them.
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