Post Falls millennial makes it to 'Survivor'

Taylor Stocker wasn't foreign to weathering the frigid temperatures inherent with his seasonal gig as a ski instructor.

Seasonal is the operative word, though.

The 24-year-old Post Falls resident needed year-round work but couldn’t find concrete employment. In March 2015, Stocker, as many Inland Northwest natives have reluctantly done out of necessity, opted to take the North Dakota oil field route to generate some coin.

He spent six months in the boom town of Williston, N.D, where he experienced bone-chilling conditions compounded by wind that made his winters atop Mt. Spokane seem like summer solstice.

"I had this job you could basically train a monkey to do," said Stocker. "I'd take a 5-gallon bucket and fill it up with dirt for testing on oil sites. I'd do that and basically drive dirt around 13 hours a day."

That line of work facilitated boredom for the physically active and uber-social Stocker, who was typically confined to either a man camp or a truck. The few leisure hours he did have — lengthy work schedules and sleep consumed the bulk of his time — were geared toward staying in shape.

But being alone in that rigorous environment gave him ample time to analyze himself in a situation he thought was somewhat akin to the hit CBS reality series "Survivor."

That was enough for the surfer-haired Stocker to try his hand at the popular show's 33rd season, "Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X," filmed in Fiji. The show will air Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 8 p.m.

"I felt like I could do it," Stocker said. "I knew a lot about myself right there."

The application process included sending an introductory video that best conveyed the prospective contestant's personality. Stocker, who describes himself as spontaneous, friendly and funny with an affinity for extreme sports, shot the video in North Dakota.

He didn't hear back from producers for a few months, he said, and had essentially forgotten he'd applied by the time casting at CBS gave him a call in November.

"I just figured they thought my video sucked," Stocker said with a laugh.

CBS then requested he send another video, one that exhibited his ability to hold a conversation while being filmed. After passing the second video test, he was flown to Los Angeles for a casting event.

When producers finally gave Stocker the nod as one of the show's 20 cast members, the gravity of the situation didn't initially hit him.

"It wasn't until this one moment I was going down a set of stairs and thought, 'Wow, I am on Survivor now,'" Stocker said. "The experience was so unreal."

"Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen. X" will feature two tribes of 10 new castaways divided by generation, Stocker belonging to the former. Filming of the series lasted 39 days in Fiji, and was the first Survivor where a full cast and crew evacuation was warranted because of a cyclone.

"It was a lot more draining than I thought," Stocker said of the competition. "I didn't think I would have as hard a time with the weather. It was colder than I expected, and it was in the tropics."

Stocker teams up with another Inland Northwest millennial, Michelle Schubert of Yakima, Wash., a 28-year-old missionary recruiter. Like past Survivor series, the sole survivor wins $1 million.

Stocker believes his characteristics helped him in the game but didn't want to give away any spoilers for the upcoming season.

"I might go in and assess and whatever and adapt naturally," he said. "My core as a person is that I want to have fun, and I think that is why I jumped from job to job so much. I don't want to be in a job that I don't want to do, and that could play into the game."

Many reality TV personalities have used their initial appearances as a springboard into other ventures. Stocker has been approached by modeling agencies since production, but that, like his team in North Dakota, would just be a means to an end.

"I would love to have some adventure business, like doing sailing tours or teaching snowboarding to bigger groups," Stocker said. "Modeling wouldn't be something I can say I'd enjoy, but hey — whatever pays the bills."