Laura Morett

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Laura Suzanne Morett (née Kampstra; born July 30, 1969), is a development director and business owner best known for competing on the reality competition show Survivor. In 2016, she made a run for public office in her home state of Oregon.

Early life and family[]

Laura Kampstra was born in Salem, Oregon, and grew up on a farm near Shaw, just southeast of Salem.^[1] She and her family lived in a house built by her father, who first met her mother, a native Hawaiian, in the South Pacific while he was serving in the U.S. military. Not long after graduating high school, Kampstra married Dan Morett, a construction contractor. Soon after, Laura Morett gave birth to a daughter, Ciera, followed by two sons, Brandon and Adam.^[2]

Career[]

Morett and her husband are co-owners of a construction company in Salem. In addition to owning a construction company, she has also worked as a paralegal at a law firm, as well as an athletic club fitness instructor. She also once worked as the person in charge of the lobby message center at the Oregon State Capitol.

Survivor[]

In 2009, Morett was cast on the 19th season of the American television series Survivor. She had originally auditioned for The Amazing Race, but got called to do Survivor instead.^[3] In 2013, she returned to Survivor for the series' 27th season, this time with her daughter Ciera Eastin (who, by that time, was herself a married woman).

Samoa[]

On Survivor: Samoa, Morett started out on the Galu tribe, where she immediately gained a reputation from viewers as the "bossy" one.^[3] During the first week of competition, she criticized fellow tribemate Shannon "Shambo" Waters after a spearfishing attempt, for not catching any fish and for losing an underwater mouthpiece from the tribe's fishing gear. On Day 16, after Galu won a reward challenge, Waters, who had just been selected the tribe's new "leader," selected Morett to observe the Foa Foa tribe, as one of the perks of Galu winning the challenge. This upset Morett, as it meant that she would have to miss out on the tribe's boat trip reward, which had also included a lunch.

While visiting the other tribe's camp, she was approached by Foa Foa member Russell Hantz, who tried, but failed, to form an alliance with her. After the Day 19 merge, Hantz again tried to align with her, but she again refused. As a result, Hantz ended up conspiring with Waters to vote Morett out at the next Tribal Council. But at the next immunity challenge, Morett and John Fincher each won immunity. Three days later, Morett again won immunity. On Day 25, she was on the winning team in the reward challenge, along with Hantz, Brett Clouser, Dave Ball, and Natalie White. This enabled Morett and her teammates to fly to another Samoan island to enjoy a picnic lunch by a waterfall. While at lunch, she discovered a clue to a hidden immunity idol, in a video stored on the Palm Pre smartphone that was loaned to the castaways at the reward. She was unable to claim the idol, though, as Hantz, who had previously found two other idols without any hints at all, saw the clue as well and found the idol first.

On Day 27, immunity was won by Mick Trimming, meaning that Morett would finally be targeted by Hantz and Waters at Tribal Council. When voting finally occurred, though, the vote was split 5–5 between Morett and White. On the revote, Fincher switched his vote to Morett, thus sending her out of the game in tenth place and making her the third member of the jury. At the Final Tribal Council, she ended up voting for White to win the title of Sole Survivor, over fellow finalists Hantz and Trimming.

Blood vs. Water[]

Four years later, Morett would also compete on Survivor: Blood vs. Water, along with her daughter Ciera Eastin. Morett was initially placed on the Galang tribe, with the other nine returning players in the game, while Eastin was place initially on the Tadhana tribe, with all the returnees' loved ones. This season featured Redemption Island, meaning that players who were voted out would have the chance to re-enter the main game at select intervals, so long as they won enough Redemption Island challenges.

At the first immunity challenge, she helped her tribe correctly assemble the puzzle first, thus earning Galang immunity. On Day Eight, she scored the final point for her tribe in that immunity challenge, by knocking her own daughter into the ocean in a sumo wrestling-style challenge. Morett again showed off her puzzle-solving skills in the Day Ten challenge, when she again beat out Eastin in the final puzzle to clinch immunity, Galang's fourth in a row to start the game.

When Tadhana finally won an immunity on Day 13, Galang member Aras Baskauskas got the rest of the tribe to vote out Morett, thus sending her to Redemption Island. While on Redemption, she avoided elimination by finishing higher than last place in two consecutive puzzle challenges. But on Day 19, her next challenge would involve hanging onto a pole for as long as possible without touching the ground; Before that challenge began, Jeff Probst announced that only the outright winner would avoid elimination, although that person would also get to return to the main game. In the end, Morett outlasted both John Cody and Laura Boneham, thus allowing Morett to return to the main game in time for the merge.

After the merge took place, Morett and Eastin noticed that there was a new "Singles Alliance" in place, consisting of players who had each lost a loved one in the game. Initially, Morett and her daughter affiliated with the Singles Alliance, but by Night 24, they were the only pair of loved ones left intact in the main game. Soon after, Eastin began hinting that she may have to vote against her own mother in order to stay in the game; she even told Morett this. Meanwhile, Tyson Apostol was trying to convince the men to vote out Morett, and on Day 26, he told Eastin of this plan. Immediately, Eastin began trying to shift the target onto Katie Collins, figuring that Collins would not have an idol with which to save herself. But at that night's Tribal Council, the men decided to stick to their original plan, and Morett was voted out unanimously, including by her own daughter.

Back on Redemption Island for the second time in the game, Morett again used her puzzle-solving proficiency to stave off elimination. After finishing her puzzle first in the challenge ahead of Tina Wesson and Vytas Baskauskas, Morett, hoping that the two women would get to remain on Redemption Island together, showed Wesson the solution to the puzzle while preventing Baskauskas from being able to see it. Wesson would end up finishing her puzzle one second ahead of Baskasuskas, thus eliminating him from the game. Morett and Wesson would go on to finish first and second, respectively, in the next two Redemption challenges as well. On Day 36, though, Morett knew that she would have to finish first for the fourth time in a row in order to avoid elimination and return to the main game a second time. But although she beat out Hayden Moss in that day's balancing challenge, it was Wesson who came in first, thus eliminating Morett in sixth place and making her the sixth member of the jury.

At the Final Tribal Council, Morett voted for Apostol to win the title of Sole Survivor.

Political office campaign[]

In 2015, Morett announced that she would be running for a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican in the 2016 election.^[2] Her Democratic opponent in the District 20 general election would be one-term incumbent Paul Evans. Despite Morett getting the endorsements of such organizations as the Oregon Farm Bureau^[4] and the NFIB,^[5] she lost to Evans by almost 2,000 votes out of nearly 33,000 cast.^[6]

References[]

External links[]

• About Laura
• Official CBS biography page