Christian Survives Longest

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- "Would you take your top off for peanut butter?"

Danni Boatwright was in Los Angeles interviewing for "Survivor: Guatemala" when one of the producers asked her that question. Previous female contestants on the show, desperate for a food treat, had done that.

"No!" she responded adamantly.

"Who is the most famous person you've slept with?"

By this time, "I was mad," she said recently. "Evidently from the (audition) tape I sent in (one of about 50,000), they thought I was a party girl because I was fun-loving."

But Boatwright, 30, a native of Tonganoxie, Kan., is a practicing Christian, a member of an Assembly of God Church and part of a family chock-full of ministers. She and her family spent summers on church mission trips.

For the second round, she said, the interviewers came at her another way.

"You're from Kansas, so you're a conservative and probably a Republican. So you hate Jews."

" `No, I don't hate Jews,' " she recalled saying. " `My good friend in high school was Jewish. I think you have Christianity all wrong,' " she said. "It's all about loving people. While on earth, you're not perfect, but the Lord will forgive you for your sins. I wouldn't judge anybody, and I don't think anybody should judge people."

Boatwright said that as she told this (and more) to the producers and directors, they were caught off guard.

"I thought for sure I wouldn't make it after that," she said. "But it felt good saying it."

To her surprise, she was chosen to be one of 18 contestants for the reality television show. Even more miraculous, she said, was that she became the last survivor. And she said she never had to compromise her Christian principles to win the game and the $1 million prize.

In analyzing her win, Boatwright, a sportscaster and former international model, said she is convinced God was in the plan because her plan didn't work.

Her strategy was to make strong alliances with members of her "tribe" on the show. But members of her tribe kept getting voted off, and she found herself without an alliance.

"I had to get rid of my strategy and let the Lord lead me in the right direction and let God take control."

Because she came from the show's weaker tribe, Boatwright thought she was vulnerable to being voted off each time she went into a tribal council meeting.

"But others were fighting among themselves, and I would just sit there," she said. "Every time I thought I was going home," and every time she escaped elimination. "That was a miracle." She was a little surprised that nobody saw her as a competitive threat, especially given her athletic background. In junior and senior high school she competed in volleyball, basketball and track. She runs with her two Rhodesian ridgeback dogs and occasionally runs marathons.

"I was praying through all of this, in the jungle, at night," she said. "One of the biggest impacts of `Survivor' is that when everything is taken away from you, it's just you and God."

On the last challenge she had to stand with her legs propped on a balance beam and her back against a pole. She remained in that position four hours in 114degree humid heat. She started feeling nauseous.

"My back was killing me," she said. "I started praying, `Lord, take away the pain.' I wasn't comfortable, but I stopped being nauseous. I thought that I could do this." She was the last person standing.

When it was announced that Boatwright had won, millions watching on television saw her mouth the words, "Thank you, Jesus."

Her brother, Drew Boatwright, who recently joined the staff of Lenexa Christian Center where Danni attends, said her success "is a testimony that you can still have godly character and win."

He said he has admired his sister for sticking to her Christian principles while in the modeling world, where there are pressures to do the opposite. She started modeling at age 16 after winning the Miss Kansas Teen USA title in 1992 and was second runner-up at the national teen pageant. She was first runner-up in the Miss USA competition.

That's not to say her life has been rosy. Her birth father was shot while on the job as a police officer, schoolmates teased her for being tall and skinny, and she has had to overcome attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia and a divorce after four years of marriage.

Vickie Cackler, her mother, said she and Danni's stepfather have always emphasized the importance of working in ministry, especially outreach ministries.

Cackler said her daughter has always made good decisions on how to live and tries to witness by example. She said she is proud of the way Boatwright played "Survivor."

"She held true to who she was," Cackler said. "In our family we are fiercely competitive. We like to play board games, and part of the rules of the game is to get the best of the other guy. And that is the object of `Survivor.' "You have to outwit everybody else. I didn't see that Danni did anything that wasn't right."

Cackler also said her daughter "didn't try to ram her faith down anybody's throat."

Today, Boatwright says, "All my dreams and goals are coming true. Every prayer has been answered."

In addition to working on her sports-casting career, which includes sideline reporting for the Arena Football League's Brigade, Boatwright would like to return to Guatemala for mission work and possibly adopt a Guatemalan child. She also wants to start a charity that, among other things, would work with young girls on dealing with self-image issues.

Since her win, many offers have come her way, including ones to appear in Playboy and Maxim magazines, she said.

"But I didn't feel that was the right image to portray," she said.

And what image does she want to portray?

"An all-American girl next door. A sports fanatic. A tomboy. And definitely that it's cool being religious."