Clark Wins Alltel Contest at Kansas State

Yesterday I shared about sitting in a 3rd floor suite at Bill Snyder Family Stadium to watch the Kansas State-Nebraska football game this past Saturday.

It was great fun. I felt like a mouse that sneaked into a castle. You know the old saying: It's not what you know; it's who you know. While that adage applied to me, inside the castle I met another mouse--Gwen Clark--who literally won her way inside the Alltel suite.

Clark, a K-State junior from McPherson, Kansas, won an Alltel contest--not with mere luck, but persistence.

First, she wrote a 50-word essay explaining why she should win a football party for herself and 100 of her friends. Her essay got selected along with 9 others as finalists. Then, she had to solicit friends and family to vote for her, either by text message or online.

And what did she win? 100 tickets to the K-State-Nebraska game. T-shirts for all those friends. A tailgate party for all those friends. 10 tickets in the Alltel "castle." A 42" plasma TV. A mountain bike. An autographed Ron Prince football. $1,000 cash. A MP3 player. And before the game started, a live picture of her and all her friends was shown on the stadium jumbotron.

Pretty good, huh?

Curiosity getting the best of me, I asked Clark, "How did you get so many people to vote for you?" She said, "I basically quit being a college student for a week and begged anyone and everyone to vote for me."

So why was she so motivated? She told me, "I've never won anything in my life and I decided that I wanted to win something...I voted for myself 2,000 times. My mom voted for me 2,000 times. And other friends and family voted for me 9,000 times."

All together, Clark garnered 13,000 votes and won by over 4,000.

After hearing all that, I thought, "Wow."

Then, the late -Saturday -night -and -won't -get -home -till -after -1:00am -preacher -who -still -hasn't -finished -his -sermon -for -Sunday -morning, thought:

"Bingo, she's my sermon illustration for tomorrow!"

More about that next time.