Mahajan '03 survives four days in school bus to win contest

Americans this summer watched the contestants on CBS's "Survivor" eat rats, form alliances, endure hunger and bug bites, and do whatever it would take to be the one contestant on the island who would go home with $1 million.

Akshay Mahajan, '03, was also a survivor this summer.

But he did not have to spend months on a deserted island in the South China Sea — just four days on a school bus. Mahajan was the winner of a "Back to School Survivor" contest that took place in Morgantown, W.Va., his home town.

On Aug. 16, he entered a small school bus parked in the center of Morgantown mall's food court with 11 other contestants. After all the other contestants had been voted off the bus, Mahajan emerged Aug. 20 with $20,000 in prizes, including a car, a computer, an aquarium, roller blades and a trip to Charlotte, N.C.

The Dominion Post, a small newspaper in Morgantown, partnered with the Morgantown mall and University Motors, a local car dealership, to hold the contest.

"We wanted to capitalize on the interest in our society in the top-rated show and localize it," said Christanna Coffman, marketing services supervisor at The Dominion Post.

The event also had a charity component. During the contest, mall patrons donated money to provide 200 children with backpacks filled with school supplies, Coffman said.

Though the competition mimicked "Survivor," it had a back-to-school theme. The contestants spent day and night on the school bus, with one bathroom break every four hours.

The participants had to perform 10 school-related tasks, leaving the bus three times per day to complete these challenges, ranging from spit-wad contests to foursquare. Afterward, they were asked to vote someone off the bus. The winner of the challenge, however, received an exemption, or "hall pass," from being voted off the bus.

A headmaster of ceremonies was present throughout the contest to offer encouragement to the contestants and emcee all contest events. Three video cameras were placed on the bus and recorded the contestants 24 hours per day for The Dominion Post's Website.

"Within a couple of hours it was like they weren't even there," Mahajan said of the cameras. "You can only go so long being paranoid about it."

Each day at the mall, a crowd of onlookers surrounded the bus, and some would come up to the windows to greet the contestants, Mahajan said.

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"We had a lot of fun with the crowd," he added.

A profile of each contestant was posted on the paper's Website, and a reporter provided complete coverage throughout the contest, as well as a live Web journal from the bus site. Members of the public were able to send the contestants e-mails that were printed out and delivered to the group every morning.

"We got a couple hundred e-mails everyday," Mahajan said. "They were from a bunch of people I had no connection to."

It was up to the contestants to occupy their time. With nothing to read or listen to, Mahajan said he spent most of his time getting to know the others on the bus. The contestants' ages ranged from 18 to 50, and Mahajan said he was surprised at how well everyone got along and how quickly bonds formed.

"The hardest part was voting people off," he said.

With the exception of the first man who was voted off — who Mahajan said snored all day long and made the decision easy — the decision was often arbitrary. Many people on the bus got very emotional when someone was leaving, he said.

What the contest came down to was surviving day to day, mentally and physically, according to Mahajan. Each contestant was allowed to bring only one "luxury" item onto the bus. Mahajan brought a blanket.

The group lived on fast food from the mall's food court for the four days. At night, they were kept awake by the mall's cleaning crew, Mahajan said, and no one was ever really able to sleep well. The contestants were woken up at 10 p.m., 2 a.m., and 6 a.m. for bathroom trips. And lying down on the bus was very difficult, he said.

When only two contestants remained, the public decided the winner, Mahajan said. About 3 million people from all over the country took part in the online voting at The Dominion Post's Website, which usually receives about 1.2 million hits a week.