On December 10, 2011, Jordon VanPamel put his name into a drawing to be a contestant on the show, "Fear Factor."  Being a strong athlete, he figured he was up for the challenge and the prize money of $50,000. Well, guess what? His luck was to unfold.  On January 1, 2012, his name was drawn.  A week later, Jordon and five other contestants were flown to California for the show. There would be three challenges. The two challenges with the lowest time would be eliminated each day, leaving two people for the final competition.
    The first challenge was grabbing slimy worms with the contestant's mouth and putting them into a large cup on a scale until the weight equaled 10 pounds. Jordon really wanted this prize money and to be the winner of "Fear Factor."  He gave it his all, with a record time of two minutes and six seconds, beating the next best time of four minutes.  
    The second challenge was lying in a coffin-like box for three minutes with black widows, scorpions, and cockroaches crawling over the contestant. With contestants two and three eliminated, there would be only four contestants left competing for the prize. This time Jordon goes first.  He’s a little nervous for this one because he could get seriously injured with the poisonous creatures . But he goes for it anyway. While he’s in the coffin full of creepy crawling critters, all he can think about is getting out.  However, he knows he must stick it out if he wants to win.  He makes it the full three minutes, with the fourth contestant moving on to the next challenge after a two-minute stay in the coffin.
     The third and final challenge was diving to a treasure trunk located ten feet under water.  Contestants dove with a ring of ten keys. The object was to find the key that would open the treasure trunk. Contestant four goes first this time.  His time comes in at 1 minute 23 seconds. Next up is Jordon.  He thinks he will do well on this one because he loves the water. He goes down to the trunk and, amazingly, opens it with the first key he tries! His time was 27 seconds! He won the $50,000 and is the 2012 Fear Factor Champion!  It seems hard to believe that a young man from Hillman could win something so big, appearing on national television. It just goes to show that anything is possible when a person sets his mind to it!