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6A NEWS CONTEST (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2009
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Kayla Higginbotham, Overland Park junior, prepares for her rally car ride with driver and extreme sports star Travis Pastrana. The ride was part of the prize Higginbotham got for winning a video competition put on by Red Bull.
minutes. The public chose ten finalists on the Red Bull Web site, and in May, Red Bull announced that Higginbotham's nearly two-minute video was the winner.
Kayla Higginbotham, Overland Park junior, holds a poster autographed by rally car driver Travis Pastrana. Higginbotham won a contest sponsored by Red Bull by submitting a video containing of edited footage of Pastrana.
The eight-minute rally car ride and opportunity to meet him were her only prizes, but Higginbotham said it was well worth it.
"It was just like a day that never ended, and that I never wanted to end," she said.
Travis Pastrana is an extreme sports star and stunt performer who has been racing motocross since the age of 4 and rally racing since 2003. His most spectacular crash was in 2005, when he rolled his Subaru rally car seven and a half times and walked away unhurt.
"Are you alive? Are you alive?
That was a hell of a ride!" he cried to his co-driver immediately afterwards in a video taken of the crash.
Although Higginbotham said she had reason to feel concerned when she rode in the car with Pastrana on Friday, she didn't scream once. He noticed, and was disappointed.
Higginbotham said he told her he didn't feel as though he did his job because she wasn't scared.
Rally drivers compete in timed sprints on unpaved roads varying in terrain from smooth gravel to ice and snow. The roads are typically rural public roads that
have been closed so drivers can drive at full speed.
Higginbotham had experience editing highlight videos for her
high school's sports teams, and said her goal was to become a sports video editor.
"At first I think it was, 'Oh here's an opportunity,' she said. "It was
"It was just like a day that never ended, and that I never wanted to end."
a free contest, no money, and rarely does that ever happen. But the more I got into it and the
KAYLA HIGGINBOTHAM Overland Park junior
more I started doing it, the more passionate I got about it."
Higginbotham said her participation in the contest started
off as a simple, fun thing to do. She had only watched rally racing one or two times before, but said she was familiar with motocross because of its inclusion in the X-Games. She said she knew that Travis Pastrana was a rising
star, but was not familiar with his work as a rally racer.
Higginbotham entered the
contest more than a year ago on the advice of her friend Natalie Cordray, a junior at Arizona State University and fellow Overland Park native, who won a Red Bull video contest in 2007 and was awarded a trip to Canada to snowboard with professional snowboarder Zach Leach.
Cordray said she and Higginbotham had played sports together in their childhood and
took a Radio and TV production class together in high school. She said their Red Bull contest wins helped bring them closer together.
"We call each other Red Bull sisters," she said. "We both won these outrageous contests through Red Bull and got to experience the some of the craziest things we'll ever experience in our life.
Colorado also provided her with valuable contacts. She said that there was a chance she might work with Pastrana on a new feature film produced in collaboration with Gregg Godfrey, a movie director who previously directed a movie with Pastrana called "199 Lives: The Travis Pastrana Story."
Higginbotham said the trip to
POLITICS
Edited by Abby OIcese
Clinton fundraiser under house arrest for bank fraud, identity theft
Associated Press
BY LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press
NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors have charged a wealthy fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top Democrats in an alleged $292 million Ponzi scheme that spanned more than a decade, saying he used some of the proceeds to support election campaigns.
In an indictment returned
Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Hassan Nemaze is charged with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
end of his decade of deception."
"For more than 10 years, Hassan Nemazee projected the illusion of wealth, stealing more than $290 million so that he could lead a lavish lifestyle and play the part of heavyweight political fundraiser," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. "Today's indictment exposes the sheer brazenness of Nemazee's schemes and marks the
He used some of the proceeds of the fraud to make donations to the election campaigns of federal, state and local candidates as well as to political action committees and charities, prosecutors said. They didn't name the candidates or groups.
Nemazee's lawyer did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.
The indictment boosts the allegations against the 59-year-old
Manhattan resident, who was arrested in August on charges that he used forged documents to obtain a $74 million loan. Prosecutors now allege that he fraudulently obtained loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars from three banks between 1998 and this year.
They said he used fake documents and signatures to show the banks that he had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of collateral.
Prosecutors said Nemaze also used some of the money to buy
property in Italy and to make monthly maintenance payments on properties in Manhattan and Katonah, N.Y.
The government is seeking $292 million in forfeitures against Nemazee, including his interest in five properties, 16 corporate entities and a hedge fund, 14 securities accounts, 32 bank accounts, a 2008 Maserati Quattroporte automobile and a 2007 Cessna aircraft.
Nemadea served as national finance chairman for Clinton's
2008 presidential campaign and later raised money for President Barack Obama after her primary defeat. He also was Sen. John Kerry's finance chair in New York for his 2004 bid for president.
Nemasea is under house arrest as part of a $25 million bail agreement. If convicted, he could face 30 years in prison on each of three counts of bank fraud and a mandatory two-year prison term on the aggravated identity theft charge.