Vecepia Towery

Vecepia Towery (born December 9, 1965 in Portland, Oregon) won $1,000,000 on the Marquesas edition of Survivor, the first black contestant to win a series of the game.

Vecepia began the game as a member of the Maraamu tribe, which had the misfortune of losing the first three immunity challenges. After this occurred, a random tribal swap occurred, transferring her, Rob Mariano, and Sean Rector, to the Rotu tribe. While none of them were voted out during their stay at Rotu (they were promised an alliance with the remaining Rotu members), a tribal merge occurred during episode 7, and Rob was voted out due to his excessive scheming.

Vecepia and Sean seemed to be the next ones to go, until three of the old Rotu members realized that they would eventually be voted out as well. Vee and Sean convinced them to ally with them, creating the first cross-tribal alliance in Survivor history, which was successful in voting out the other Rotu members. After this point, the remaining five were Sean, Vecepia, Paschal English, Kathy Vavrick-O'Brien, and Neleh Dennis. The latter three, as former Rotu members, stuck together to vote out Sean, and once again Vecepia's days appeared to be numbered. As it happened, she won the next immunity challenge; the ensuing vote ended up in a tie, which was broken by the other three contestants drawing a rock from a bag; Paschal drew the purple rock, which meant that he would be "voted" out (as a consensus could not be reached). This is still considered one of the most controversial Survivor rules, though this situation has not come up again.

Neleh won the final immunity challenge, bringing Vecepia to the final two. Here, the two faced a jury that accused both of them of self-righteousness (although each had a couple of strong allies). In the end, Vecepia won the jury vote 4-3.

It is possible that Vecepia may be Survivor's least popular winner to date. As an outspoken evangelical Christian her personality often made others uncomfortable, and she had few memorable or funny moments on the island. In fact, Towery did not even have a speaking part in a number of episodes, and was barely present for most of the season (Towery herself complained about her lack of airtime).

Some fans and commentators are still stubborn as ever and actually believe that Neleh played a better game and only lost because three Rotu alliance members on the jury voted against her out of revenge. In addition, her betrayal of Kathy during the final immunity challenge to make a deal with Neleh (whom she and Kathy had agreed to vote out if one of them won) was largely deplored, even though she made a winning move that allowed her to win. She was not asked to partake in Survivor: All Stars but has stated she would not have done it due to her pregnancy.

While Survivor: Marquesas was still airing, Vecepia married longtime boyfriend and fiancé Leander Robinson. Robinson had made an appearance on the traditional episode where loved ones of the remaining Survivors came to visit. The birth of their child was later the subject of a TLC documentary, which also featured appearances by other Marquesas contestants, including Neleh (then married herself) and Sean.