Air National Guard Master Sgt. Ladeania Jackson competes on the reality TV show, "The Summit." (CBS)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Ladeania Jackson, an Air National Guard master sergeant, and three others who completed a 14-day challenge in the Southern Alps of New Zealand shared a $1 million prize on the reality TV show “The Summit.”
The 16 contestants who started the show carried a share of the prize money in their backpacks but, as they dropped out, surrendered it to those who carried on.
Jackson — known as “Punkin Jackson” on the show — said she has been an avid reality TV fan since childhood. When she found out about auditions for “The Summit” through an Instagram post, she seized the opportunity.
“We had no idea what exactly we were signing up for,” she told Stars and Stripes in an interview Tuesday at Yokota, an airlift hub in western Tokyo. “I just thought it would be a great experience and a great opportunity.”
A native of Columbus, Miss., Jackson serves with the 194th Air Support Operations Group at Camp Murray, Wash. But her home is at Yokota with her spouse, Senior Master Sgt. Tamika Boler of the 374th Logistics Readiness Squadron.
Air National Guard Master Sgt. Ladeania Jackson, right, competes on the reality TV show, "The Summit." (CBS)
Jackson went home with $250,000 and plans to use the money to expand her family. It will cover some of the cost of in vitro fertilization, she said in a Facebook message Wednesday.
Jackson said the competitors weren’t told what they had signed up for until the first day of filming.
They were given 14 days to scale a mountain while carrying an equal share of a $1 million prize in addition to all their gear. Anyone who made it to the top would win a share of the prize money, but if no one completed the journey, all the money would be lost.
“Hearing those words was a shock, to say the least,” Jackson said. “None of us had any kind of hiking experience or mountain climbing experience, so it was going to be challenging for sure. I was getting what I signed up for, a challenge.”
As their trek wore on, contestants were eliminated through votes and challenges until the final three reached the summit of Mount Head.
“We all had a goal to make it to the top, and to be one of the three that made it, win the game and accomplish that goal, was an amazing feeling that is truly hard to describe,” Jackson said.
Air National Guard Master Sgt. Ladeania Jackson competes on the reality TV show, "The Summit." (Ladeania Jackson)
The show averaged 2.1 million viewers per episode, according to TV tracker tvseriesfinale.com, but earned mixed reviews.
“The Summit” ends up a cheap knockoff of the CBS network’s defining reality show, “Survivor,” said Kelly Lawler, TV critic for USA Today.
The show is “too physically difficult for most of its contestants and full of nonsensical twists and rules that make it hard to understand, let alone get sucked into,” she wrote Sept 27. “There’s very little suspense to a show where it seems clear the biggest guy is probably going to be the winner.”
Joel Keller of the Decider website was kinder. “The vistas in that part of the world are spectacular,” he wrote Sept. 29. “The show is worth watching just to show this group going from the lush greenery at the base of the mountain to the Arctic conditions near the top.”
Jackson hopes to compete on more reality TV shows and is eager for the next challenge.
“Your mind is your biggest obstacle,” she said. “If you can get over that, you can accomplish any dream or goal you set out to accomplish.”
