Archive through October 10, 2002
TV ClubHouse: Archives: Jan Gentry:
Archive through October 10, 2002
Amac | Thursday, August 15, 2002 - 10:10 am     Jan Gentry Age: 53 Hometown: Tampa Bay, Fla. Occupation: Teacher |
Twiggyish | Monday, September 02, 2002 - 04:07 pm     Florida!! I'll root for her. |
Admin | Thursday, September 19, 2002 - 12:33 pm     Article on Jan, sent to me from a fan.. http://sptimes.com/Floridian.shtml |
Eliz87 | Friday, September 20, 2002 - 06:30 am     She seems like a nice lady. I just hope that she hones her voting skills so that she's voting off people for other reasons than who needs the money the least. |
Earthmother | Friday, September 20, 2002 - 07:27 am     If last night is any indication of how she will play this game then she's a keeper. She swims far better than some of her tribe-mates and had no problem with the maze puzzle. She gained more time for her team than the other 2.
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Tester | Friday, September 20, 2002 - 08:51 am     After checking the tape, I believe it was Helen who voted based on who least needed it money, not Jan. Maybe the CBS website can confirm this. |
Webkitty | Friday, September 20, 2002 - 09:10 am     What was that whiney, pitiful soundbite all about when she was talking about choosing her team? MB really didn't portray her in a good light on that one. She seemed totally unsure of herself and out of place on this show to me at that point. I thought, oh, she's not going to last! Knowing MB though, I'm sure it was all a ruse to throw me off the trail, she will probably go the distance. He likes to torment me with false clues, you know  |
Car54 | Friday, September 20, 2002 - 12:54 pm     Tester, it definitely was Helen who voted Clay. Jan voted John because the tension he created took too much energy from the tribe. |
Car54 | Friday, September 20, 2002 - 01:18 pm     Surviving is elementary Tampa teacher Jan Gentry achieves instant Survivor: Thailand fame as the oldest players pick tribes. By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic © St. Petersburg Times published September 20, 2002 Jan Gentry So far, she's done us all proud. That's the conclusion this critic has reached, anyway, after watching Thursday's debut episode of Survivor: Thailand, in which Tampa resident Jan Gentry played a starring role without coming close to ejection from the game. Viewers saw Gentry and 15 other contestants take residence on the island of Koh Tarutao -- the largest remote jungle island in southern Thailand -- embarking on the reality TV show's time-honored formula of deprivation, competition and personal politics. Producers had promised a twist to Survivor's well-known framework and they delivered, immediately dividing the contestants by gender -- which had hoodwinked some fans into thinking that would be the change -- before selecting the group's two oldest contestants to pick the game's two teams. (Host Jeff Probst, in a typical burst of Survivor-speak, said they were picked because "in Thailand, the elders are treated with the utmost respect." Whatever.) That meant Gentry, 53, and land broker Jake Billingsley, 61, would pick the two competing groups -- with Gentry's team, Chuay Gahn, represented by a orange sash and Billingsley's pack, Sook Jai, represented by purple. "I really did kind of get scared," Gentry said. "I'm not really a leader. And I was put in the spotlight, which kind of frightened me." As you might expect from a first-grade teacher known as everybody's cheerleader at McKitrick Elementary School, Gentry picked a team filled with nice, older people who didn't fit the typical mold for Survivor success: small, fortysomething Clay Jordan; perpetually sick Tanya Vance; chubby legal secretary Ghandia Johnson. Indeed, contestants hoping to land on Billingsley's team snickered at the "little old lady" -- they apparently hadn't yet learned of her habit of running 3 to 5 miles daily -- avoiding eye contact with her to get in the younger, more athletic group. "I don't know what Jan was thinking," added Billingsley, who chose hunky, musclebound dudes: skateboarder Robb Zbacnik; athletic dental student Jed Hildebrand; New York City police officer Ken Stafford. "I based picking the teams on athleticism and just that gleam in their eye." Or, as Zbacnik so poetically put it: "We definitely got all the hot chicks." It's here that Survivor's producers excelled, exposing how Billingsley's team was less cohesive and tense, bouncing off each other in a haze of testosterone and youthful energy. With both teams sent off to find water and shelter with a map, paddle boat, can of beans and little else, Gentry's group quickly found a cave for shelter and drinking water -- while Billingsley's crew fought over whether to build a shelter or gather food, winding up stuck in the open during a driving rainstorm. "That's why shelter's so important dude," shouted an amped-up Zbacnik, quickly emerging as the group bonehead. In Chuay Gahn, Gentry quickly took a back seat to bossy Louisiana pastor John Raymond -- a counselor and clergyman so clueless he never saw it coming when the tribe turned on him. Despite foreshadowing that hinted Johnson would get the hook -- a Survivor trademark -- Gentry's team ejected Raymond after losing a close immunity challenge race to Sook Jai. Johnson, after all, had blown the team's big lead during the race, forcing them to eject someone during an emotional Tribal Council ceremony. But Raymond, it seemed, forgot the cardinal rule of Survivor's early days: the biggest, bossiest jerk often hits the showers first. "This is quite a surprise for me," Raymond said, clueless to the end. "I didn't think there were any alliances on this team, but I guess there were." McKitrick Elementary School became its own tribe Thursday night, as roughly 70 or so teachers, administrators and friends assembled at the Tampa Ale House on North Dale Mabry Highway with one goal: cheering their pal Gentry. They wore white T-shirts with the phrase "Survive Thailand ... That's Nothing" in blue lettering, passing around wings and bottles of beer. The cheers came often: at the show's introduction, at the first brief glimpse of Gentry, when she had to pick tribe members, when two of the show's young hunks bared their pecs. They pounded on tables and cheered endlessly as the two tribes raced in the immunity challenge, reaching ear-splitting levels when Gentry maneuvered a rope through a table maze. "She's tough, she's a go-getter," said kindergarten teacher Sheri Norkas. "She's going to step up and get what she wants." Gentry wasn't there -- she was sheltered at an unknown location -- but she'll be back to school Monday. The teachers plan to greet her in a new tribal uniform: overalls and orange bandanas, with their hair in pigtails. (Those who missed Thursday's show can catch CBS's rebroadcast at 9 p.m. Saturday.) As Raymond's torch was symbolically snuffed and he took the long walk off the show, teacher Denise Cateledge summed up everyone's feeling at the Ale House: "It wasn't Jan, and that's a good thing." -- Staff writer John Balz contributed to this report. |
Hermione69 | Saturday, September 21, 2002 - 07:31 am     I felt bad for Jan because she did not want the role that she placed in and got momentarily flustered. I thought she ended up showing a lot of depth. I didn't see her as whiny at all, but more like, "I couldn't believe this and I didn't know what to do!" Simply relaying her reaction to the situation. It was completely unexpected start to the tribe selection, after all. I'm rooting for her to go far and hope her team wins the next immunity challenge so the two tribes are back on even footing. |
Cc1976 | Saturday, September 21, 2002 - 04:23 pm     I like her too. When is the last time that they've had a team challenge where they get to pick 3 or 4 members to compete that a team has chosen one of the older people to do a leg of the race? Go Jan! I thought she did great. She's one heck of a swimmer. |
Catfat | Tuesday, September 24, 2002 - 12:26 pm     When Jan was asked to choose her team she seemed reluctant at first, but then came through with strong, decisive actions. Perhaps part of her strategy is to remain quietly in the background, knowing the strong leaders are instant targets and are picked off first. Look at Hunter, for instance, from S4. He did a great deal of work and had charisma and leadership. Gone. And Vecepia did absolutely nothing for nearly all the game, seemingly to come to life in the last couple of weeks. Lisa is doing this now in BB3. In other words, don't be too good at what you do or you'll be wiped out by the more mediocre people around you. Just an observation. |
Lostintheglades | Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 07:03 am     Ditto Twiggy. She's right across the bay from me so she gets my vote. |
Tester | Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 08:45 am     Twiggy, Lostintheglades - I join you in holding up the Florida connection. I think Jan has a depth that is not immediately apparent. |
Egbok | Thursday, September 26, 2002 - 10:47 pm     I love those pigtails - too cute!! I know that older women aren't suppose to wear that style, but I find them adorable on her. |
Catfat | Friday, October 04, 2002 - 02:22 pm     bump |
Car54 | Saturday, October 05, 2002 - 05:08 pm     She's not telling Jan Gentry, a bay area teacher, will discuss many things, but her stint on Survivor Thailand is not one of them. By JOHN BALZ, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times published September 19, 2002 Jan Gentry, 53, of Tampa won't divulge any information about her stint on the CBS show Survivor Thailand. But the McKitrick Elementary School teacher does like overalls, Willie Nelson and good wine. TAMPA -- If I were sending Jan Gentry flowers I would send her favorites, shasta daisies and birds of paradise. Gentry's a Home Depot gal and could easily kill an afternoon at the nursery with her Capital One credit card. If I were really trying to get her attention I might renew her subscription to Runner's World magazine or give her a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, size medium, a bit loose through the shoulders just the way she likes it. What she has always wanted, and we're getting kind of personal here, is a facelift. Mind you, Gentry is 53 and happily married to a tallish man named William, whom she calls "Mr. Bill," so at best we'd just be friends. Still, my attempts to woo her would consist of 18 holes of golf in the morning and deep-sea fishing off Clearwater Beach in the afternoon. I would be sure to keep a chess board, a pack of cards, and a copy of Mary Higgins Clark's latest thriller on the boat. If I were well-connected I would get Tom Hanks to join us and dish the dirt on the making of Forrest Gump. For dinner we would eat fajitas, lobsters, T-bone steaks, corn on the cob, garlic mashed potatoes, Snickers bars, maybe an orange or two. Then again, Gentry doesn't eat much. She doesn't sleep much, either, so there'd be time, after dinner, to sit around listening to Willie Nelson while we split a six-pack of Beck's beer and smoked Cuban cigars. But if Gentry wins $1-million on the reality show Survivor Thailand, which she competed in over the summer, she won't need any of my tokens of friendship. She can take her own fishing trips and sing Willie Nelson tunes in that distinctive Texas twang. And she can buy a lifetime supply of her signature outfit: blue denim overalls. Have the ratings spoken? Survivor: Thailand debuts tonight with a Tampa woman in the cast and experts wondering if the sun has set on the ground-breaking reality show. Win or lose, all of McKitrick Elementary School, where she teaches, will certainly be watching the Tampa triathlete's stint on the largest pristine jungle island in southern Thailand, Koh Tarutao. No one knows how long she was out there -- except Gentry, producer Mark Burnett and a few in-the-know CBS executives, who, as usual, are treating the episodes and their million-dollar ending like a state secret. Survivor, the cultural phenomenon that defined a television genre, rewards players who have quick thinking, political suavity, two burly arms and, often, two sly faces. In its fifth season, the show continues to reap huge Thursday night ratings for CBS. All of which make Gentry the network equivalent of the Pentagon handler who walks around with the briefcase of secret nuclear codes handcuffed to his wrist. CBS has forbidden her from speaking to the media, and even Mr. Bill, her three children and two step-children will have to tune into the hour-long episodes to find out how she fared. So, do the first-graders at McKitrick have a millionaire for a teacher? "There's not much I can say," said CBS spokeswoman Johanna Fuentes. "Our standard response is we cannot confirm or deny anything." Fuentes estimates that she uses that phrase "hundreds" of times a year. The Texas tomboy We can confirm that Gentry was born Janet Belknap in Fort Worth on Oct. 31, 1948, to Donald, an executive with the Chicago-based department chain Montgomery Ward, and Winifred, a homemaker. She was a tomboy and an athlete from the get-go. The youngest of four children, she swam in the Junior Olympics at 14. Her older brother Jim, nearly 6 feet 6, was a basketball star. Her other brother, Don Jr., died in a car accident when she was a child. Her sister's name is Carol. The neighborhood was typical suburbia, except for this: Marguerite Claverie, the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald, lived near Gentry's junior high school. Gentry was in the crowd as president John F. Kennedy's motorcade wound through the streets of Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 en route to his assassination. Later, Oswald's mother tried to coax Stripling Junior High students into her house to cut out newspaper articles about her son and to eat cookies. Gentry declined, according to friend Sue Sferra. Gentry graduated from Arlington Hills High School in 1967. From there she bounced from Texas Tech University, where most of her friends were enrolled, to the University of Texas at Austin, where she met her first husband, Jef Russell, on a blind date. They married in 1971. She never seemed to take college seriously, but eventually completed a bachelor's degree in elementary education at Lamar University and then a special education teaching certificate at Texas Woman's University. The couple moved to Colorado and then back to Fort Worth. Throughout the 1980s Gentry spent her free time crabbing, running marathons and volunteering with the Junior League, playing the role of Santa Claus at a charity event. She tried her hand at selling hand-painted baskets and gave birth to three children -- Jef, 26, a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts; Molly, 24, who works in real estate; and William, 18, who turned out to be a 6-foot-4, 250-pound high school tight end. Holidays were a giant production, part Hallmark card, part National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, with logs burning, cameras flashing, wrapping paper and gifts everywhere. On birthdays Gentry marked her children's growth on a height chart and served them breakfast in bed. Having played with Martina Navratilova in a local pro-am event, Gentry became the tennis star's personal assistant, housesitting, driving her car and opening hundreds of pieces of mail a week. 'Meant to teach' In 1987, in need of something else to do, Gentry began a new career in the Fort Worth Independent School District teaching special education. "She was meant to teach," Sferra said. She drove a black-and-white Checker cab with a vinyl interior to school and taught emotionally disturbed children. When the kids acted up, she drove them to the lake to fish. Gentry and Russell divorced in the early 1990s. It was a difficult time, but Gentry decided to stay in Beaumont, Texas, at least until Molly graduated from high school. While at Vidor Elementary School, she befriended Lisa Tyndall, who set her up with William Gentry. They met in a Beaumont parking lot in 1992, with Gentry wearing red cowboy boots. Four years later they were married in a small, low-key ceremony at his house. "My dad is not as wild and spontaneous as she is," said stepdaughter Lisa Gentry, 20. "They give each other a good balance." William took a job managing a fleet of cement trucks in Winter Park and Gentry followed him. Although she had spent her entire teaching career with special needs children, Orange County's school district wouldn't accept her Texas special ed credentials, a rejection that Gentry still can't believe. Instead, the district hired her to teach at Pine Hill Elementary. Gentry worked part-time jobs too, five months selling clothes at Ann Taylor and five months at Walt Disney World, where she even put on a Minnie Mouse costume. She sent the extra money home to Texas and visited her ailing mother twice a year. William transferred to Tampa and Gentry took a temporary $26,252-a-year position at Bellamy Elementary on Wilsky Boulevard, teaching second grade. Within six months she had landed a full-time position, and when McKitrick opened on Lutz Lake Fern Road last fall she moved. Her classroom evaluations are overwhelmingly positive. Her Bellamy supervisor wrote "Jan is in a 'one-of-a-kind' category. A dynamic teacher!" Wonder if it did her any good on Survivor, where it seems everyone's an infantile personality. Welcome to the jungle On a typical day Gentry rises at 5:15 a.m., lifts weights at the Hunter's Green Country Club for 45 minutes and drives her red Mazda Miata convertible 17 miles to begin teaching in Room 202 at 7:30 a.m. sharp. She greets her 23 first-graders with one of "three H's": a hug, a handshake or a high-five. A sign is taped to her classroom door: "Welcome to the Jungle" (in honor of Survivor). She reads from a wooden rocking chair with a lime green cushion, often reciting the story of a toothy hero named Captain Underpants because she believes you need a sense of humor to get through life. In the corner is a web of chicken wire in which she catches her students art work. Ask her for something and it may take her two days to find it. "(Jan's) really more big picture," said Tyndall. "Details were not her thing. She can fly by the seat of her pants and pull something off." [Photo: CBS] Look for the bay area's own Jan Gentry onSurvivor Thailand tonight at 8 on CBS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- She doesn't usually wear makeup -- although she has been seen in mascara since returning from Thailand. She doesn't bother with a hair brush, preferring to keep her reddish-blond locks in pigtails or in a a single braid. She's never bothered with a lesson plan. Psychologists would call her creative, and on a Myers-Briggs test she's probably the guardian provider or the artistic ambassador. Technology gives her fits. Teachers use a spreadsheet program to evaluate their students. The program spits out a percentage at the end. But for Gentry, the numbers never seem to come out right. Around school she is known for being everybody's cheerleader and for her wry wit. "You might get the wrong punch line (from her) but that's part of her charm," said friend Kathy Kelly. After school she usually runs 3 to 5 miles and then sprints up and down the bleachers at Wharton High School, up the road from her home. Pointing to her nonconfrontational personality and her emaciated figure at the beginning of the school year, those who know Gentry believe she was a formidable competitor who made it, if not to the final two, at least to the final four. Those who don't know her don't give her much of a chance. Most older contestants have had brief stays on Survivor, and according to a poll on the fan site www.survivorfever.net, viewers think the tribe kicked Gentry off the island first. Intertops.com an online gambling service that keeps odds on the show, has her at 19-1, dead last with four other contestants. My wine-drinking buddy Jan and William Gentry live in one of the older subdivisions in Hunter's Green, Wynstone, just east of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in New Tampa. They are the third owners of a house they purchased four years ago for $212,000. It is a single-story house, roughly 2,600 square feet with a tile roof, pool and screened-in lanai. Wynstone is a deed-restricted community and the Gentrys keep a tidy yard. Ann Johnson, the property manager and enforcer of those restrictions, says "I wouldn't even recognize her if she walked in the door." She remains mostly unknown to her neighhors as well. Hunter's Green is a gated community. Soliciting is strictly forbidden and its residents have a long and proud tradition of calling the police when journalists are caught knocking on doors. I went anyway. Gentry came to the door in overalls and a pirate's goldhoop earrings. She's smaller than her Junior Olympic days, about 5-foot-6, 115 pounds. She had on black-frame glasses -- her driver's license lists "corrective lenses" as a restriction. Standing on a welcome mat, she said she had reached the final round of three and then lost when her weary hand slipped off a carved idol during the final physical challenge. "I was going to spend part of the money on a new boat," she said. Kidding, CBS. I'm kidding. You want to know what she really said? "You want to come inside and have a glass of wine?" She led me to her back room, where the sound from a movie on Lifetime came through 6-foot-tall speakers (her husband is an electronics fanatic). "Would you like white?" she asked. It was Sept. 11 and she had her hair pulled back with red, white and blue bands in that single braid. "You know, just because I can't talk to you doesn't mean I can't be nice. Reporters from TV and radio stations call all the time, they've been to my school, but no one has ever come over here before. I probably shouldn't have let you in. I guess next time I won't." She pulled a bottle out of the refrigerator; a fish bowl full of beer bottle caps rested on top of the giant appliance. Stuck to the front was an 8- by 11-inch collage of photos of friends and family that she took to Koh Tarutao. She sat cross-leg in a lounge chair, rubbing her feet. "I e-mail with CBS every day. They tell me what I can't do with the press, what to watch out for, the traps you set. They want to keep the suspense for the viewers. I think it's meant to seem like we're on the island right now. I'm not supposed to give formal interviews but this isn't formal; you're just having a drink with me. My wine-drinking buddy," Gentry said. I asked if America was going to see her in an outfit other than overalls. She smiled. Then she leapt up and rushed to the mantel, grabbing what appeared to be some type of shell and a wooden water jug, mementos of her time on Koh Tarutao. "You shouldn't see these," she said, squirreling the items away in a safe place. She gave a house tour. Photos are everywhere: framed on end tables, on tile counter tops, dozens of them loose in a shallow bowl in her living room. Her son William keeps a messy room and favors Corona beer. But overall the house is considerably neater than her classroom, and I wondered if that was Mr. Bill's taming influence. Beethoven the guinea pig sleeps on pine bedding in the front hallway and Fred the cockatiel swings on a perch close to the kitchen. Mr. Bill sat on the carpet, shirtless, putting in the final screws into a roll-out computer keyboard drawer. "I'll tell you what," he said. "She's tough as nails." "I'm tough?" Jan said, in mocking disbelief. "Does that mean I'm hard to live with? And what aspect of me would lead you to say that?" She laughed. I asked Mr. Bill where he takes his wife on special occasions and he listed Malio's, Bern's, "all the good places." He waved me into the master bathroom and pointed to a drawing of girl in blue overalls with pink and yellow polka dots, a giant smile taking up half her face and a flower in her hair. "That's a self-portrait," he said. "She drew that when she was 4 or 5. That's exactly who she is today. It's remarkable how someone can do that, how someone can know who they are so young. What you see is what you get with Jan." -- Times Staff Writer Eric Deggans and Researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report. John Balz can be reached at (813) 269-5313 or at balz@sptimes.com sptimes.com/2002/09/19/Floridian/She_s_not_telling.shtml |
Ginger1218 | Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 09:54 am     Ok, I am not being mean, just noticing something. Does anybody think that Jan looks wayyyyyyy older than 53? She is very nice, and I want her to go far, but I cannot believe there is any way she is 53. Unless she had an incredibly hard life. |
Fruitbat | Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 10:13 am     Ginger, yes, this was talked about in another thread and all agreed. I am thinking her age is a mistake on the website. I am 56 and I know no one my age or older that look this old. Her skin and muscle tone are those of a much older woman. It HAS to be a mistake. |
Gina8642 | Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 10:48 am     Everyone ages differently. Some look older than they are, some younger. It sounds like Jan spent alot of her life in Texas, a dry hot place. And she did a lot of out door activities in the sun - not good for the skin. So, I believe she could be 53. She moves like a 53 year old. She's had no problems keeping up with the younger tribe members. She scaled up the rock wall in the first episode right with John. I think her skin just looks weathered. Maybe that's why she wants the face lift. |
Alegria | Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 02:07 pm     If being in Texas makes a woman look 20 years older than her stated age then I'm not even willing to VISIT the place. I'll just wear a cowboy hat and stick a pair of longhorns on the hood of my car.  |
Hermione69 | Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 03:01 pm     Jan is my early favorite. She just strikes a chord with me. She was so quiet during episode 3; I wonder what she was really thinking. |
Chiparock | Sunday, October 06, 2002 - 03:18 pm     Jan has been an athlete all her life: she was a swimmer in the Junior Olympics and is a triathlete. Plus, reddish-blondes usually have very fair skin, which weathers and ages quickly, especially when exposed to the sun and dryness for long periods of time. Case in point: Tina Wesson, the winner of Survivor Australia. At age 40, she looked 60 by the end of the ordeal. She is a fair-skinned blonde whose skin really took a beating. I was amazed that she was able to repair the damage enough to look fabulous on tv after the show. Perhaps makeup artists contributed to the healthy look of her skin. Tina probably made an effort throughout her life to protect her skin; this was impossible in Australia. Jan probably never in her life gave a second thought to the effect of the sun on the condition of her skin. Like the extremely weathered Robert Redford, Jan would have benefited greatly from the use of sunblock and hats whenever in the sun. Jan seems to be a nice, athletic lady flying under the radar for now. She may surprise a lot of people and go far in the game. |
Cassie | Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 07:15 pm     No offence intended, but I just find it very hard to watch Jan. Tonight when they showed a close up of her talking with Ghandia, she was eating something that looked like shredded, fried coconut. Ghandia said something and she started laughing, mouth wide open while still full of the "stuff" she was in the process of chewing! Not an image I want to see again, thank you very much! She just seems SO much older than 53, in many ways. |
Fruitbat | Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 08:55 pm     Cassie, me too! I do think her age is misprint. I bet she is 63, I am serious. |
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