Debra Beebe did not enter Survivor: Tocantins looking like a power player.  How cutthroat could a mother/middle school principal really be?  But, as the weeks progressed and we got to know Debbie more and more, she showed herself to be quite a formidable Survivor foe.  Who knows how far she could have gotten if she hadn't latched herself to Tyson and Coach's wagon so early on?  We had the pleasure of speaking with Debbie earlier this morning to discuss her time on Survivor.

Below you will find both the written transcript and the full mp3 audio of the interview.

Hello, this is Oscar Dahl from BuddyTV and I'm here with Debra Beebe from Survivor: Tocantins.  Debbie, how are you today?

I'm doing great.  How are you?


I'm pretty darn good.  So, going into last night's tribal council, did you think you were at risk of getting voted out?

No!  I absolutely felt safe, safe, safe and that is when you're in trouble in this game.


Watching that whole episode, were you surprised about everything that was going on behind your back. After you got voted out, is that what you expected to see?

Actually, I was really surprised.  I'm going to get JT and Stephen for mocking me.  I can't wait to get a hold of those two.  Anyway, no, I say that in good fun. I was shocked that you didn't see two days of the tribe talking about voting Coach out and I'm really...it took me a while to finally agree, but I thought it was the only way to save myself.  But for two days, they were really pushing me to vote Coach, so I was so shocked when it was me.


The reason they seemed to give for voting you out last night was that you had been so aggressive in trying to get out Coach and that was suspicious in a way.  Do you think that if you had laid off a little bit and played the game a little less in last night's episode you would have been fine?

I don't know.  They were threatened by me.  Stephen was saying what a crafty player I was and how strong physically I was, and even the episode before, Jeff had made a comment in tribal council about how big a threat I was and so I really don't think so and in all honesty, I wasn't the one being aggressive in trying to get Coach out.  I know it came out like that but for two days all I heard from them was that Coach was annoying everybody, and I aligned with he and Tyson on day three, so it was hard for me to make that decision and I finally agreed with them on the last day.
 

What's going through your mind after your mind after you get voted off?  Are you pissed off or you did you come to grips with it pretty quick?

I came to grips with it really quick because this game has been a blindside all along and honestly, the minute Jeff snuffed my torch I was like "Where's the food?"  That's the only thing I could think of.  I wasn't upset, I am absolutely not angry with anybody.  This is a game, I really loved these people I played with.  There are not any hard feelings.  The first thing you think of - actually, it's a relief.  I was thrilled to know I was going home to a dry tent and food.  And so, you hate it, but I knew it must have been my time to go.


If you could do it all over again, would you have distanced yourself from Coach earlier in the game?

No, I don't think so.  Coach and Tyson came out as true leaders early in Timbira. Brendan was quiet at first, so it was hard to read him.  Brendan was an amazing player.  I don't think so.  I think I made the right move.  What happened was Timbira made the wrong move in the end.  I mean, we're going to go down as such a stupid tribe.  We had the numbers, but we let Jalapao merge with us and then the guys, JT and Stephen, got the guys to start really second guessing each other.  They were brilliant.  So, we started picking our own players off. 


So if you could do it all again, would you have brought in Erinn and Sierra after the merge and said "Let's just get all these Jalapao guys off first?"

Yeah.  Absolutely that's what we should have down.  And we really all planned that.  Brendan had already strategized that and that's what we were going to do.  But last minute, it was like they started pitting Brendan and Tyson against each other and so it really backfired.  Jalapao was brilliant in that respect.  We knew we had a good chance of losing Erinn to the other side immediately because we actually had...she would have gone if Jerry hadn't had gotten so sick and asked us to vote him out. That was supposed to be Erinn.  I've got to give her credit.  She played with class the whole time even when she knew she had a target on her back, at least where Timbira was concerned.  There wasn't a chance to get Erinn back.  When Sierra and I got in our blowout I was just seeing if we could get Timbira back together.  And it was just too far gone.


How did you feel about the portrayal of your and Coach's skirmish with Sierra last week, both in camp and at tribal?

I think it was obviously...it happened.  It's on camera. I don't ever want to blame editing, but I think that they left out - we basically had two days of constant bickering, pleading, listening to things, you know, and so it wasn't just Sierra talking for a couple of minutes and me putting my hand up and saying "I'm done."  We really had been through it all for two days.  In all honesty, Sierra and I are really close, of course I'm old enough to be her mother but I call her my sister, and as with anybody that you care about, you can get into verbal issues and we did.  I love her to death, and I do feel that I was a little harsh, but then again the viewing community didn't know what really led up to that little outburst.


All right Debbie, you have any big plans for the future?

No, I'm back to being a middle school principal in Auburn, Alabama! 

Thanks, Debbie, I appreciate you taking the time.


-Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl