Nevada native wins a new car

Thursday, April 17, 2008

A failed attempt to win tickets to the Super Bowl resulted in an even better prize for Klemens Ast, a 2008 Cadillac CTS. Ast, son of Leroy and Ann Ast, is a pre-med student at Pittsburg State University who hopes to go on to medical school and become a radiologist.

"I'm about a year away from med school. I'm thinking of MU, it's pretty much the top one on my list," Ast said.

Ann Ast said he had entered the sweepstakes because he wanted to win a pair of tickets to the Super Bowl and was automatically entered into the next week's sweepstakes, which featured the car as the top prizes in the Cadillac of Premieres sweepstakes sponsored by Cadillac and CBS.com.

"I entered because I wanted to win Super Bowl tickets, I didn't even know I'd be eligible for the car," Ast said. "It came as a big surprise to me."

When he first heard about the prize he thought it might be a scam, so he contacted his lawyer, Kendall Vickers. Vickers sent him away with the admonition that it was probably a scam; but as he checked into it, Vickers found it to be real.

"They overnighted this package to me with all sorts of paperwork -- it even had the 1099," Ast said. "At first I thought it was a scam; but then I got to thinking, they sent it overnight and went to a lot of trouble; so I checked with Kendall."

Vickers admits his own initial reaction was skeptical as well.

"The day he came in I sent him away and told him I thought it was a scam," Vickers said. "I checked into it and someone got back to me and I found out it was true."

Vickers said it was a nice surprise for Ast, who has been driving an 18-year-old car.

"It's nice to see someone who could use it win the car," Vickers said. "He's the youngest of 11 kids and they're all successful, hardworking kids."

His mother said that while winning was a surprise it took a while for the prize to actually arrive and anticipation made the wait seem even longer.

"He found out he won back in November, but he didn't get the car until Monday," she said. "It was a long wait."

Ast said that while he appreciates the car, he won't keep it for long -- he plans to sell it in order to pay the taxes for winning it.

"I'll still be able to get a brand new car after I pay the taxes and still have money in my pocket," Ast said. "I'll have some more money for school, that's the main thing, it's most important."

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