Librarian Lisa's Win Revenge Of The Nerd!

She played it by the book.

- Amy Prebble

In July last year, school librarian and mum-of-one Lisa Stanger was squashed in a crowd of strangers clamouring to get into Auckland’s Civic Theatre to watch the live final of the first season of Survivor NZ.

“At the time, I thought, ‘This might be my only chance to get to a Survivor finale. I’d better do it.’ Turns out I was wrong about that!” she laughs.

Fast-forward a year and Lisa, 38, was seated on the Civic stage as one of three potential winners of series two. Office manager Tess Fahey and clinical pharmacist Dave Lipanovic were beside her, nervously waiting to learn who had nabbed the title of Sole Survivor and the $250,000 prize.

The Survivor superfan says she didn’t feel confident the seven members of the jury would vote for her to win.

“Every jury has its own things they care about,” she explains. “I’m not ashamed of anything I did. It’s not like I lied to people about anything apart from the game. I lied to them because I wanted to win and that is how you play the game.” It seems the other TVNZ 2 reality show contestants agreed as Lisa won with four votes to Tess’ three.

With a huge smile, Lisa gleefully admits the triumph is a long-held dream come true. “In the past, I’ve sort of struggled a bit socially. I’m not very fit. I’ve got asthma. But I won!” she says in wonder. “I still can’t quite believe it. It really is crazy.”