Thursday, December 6, 2007

Evel Knievel: Dare Devil, Lobbyist?

This revelation is perhaps not all that surprising given the original death defier's innate skills of self-promotion:


Knievel attended Butte High School, which he left early, but not before discovering his sporting talent. In 1959 he played professional ice-hockey for a season in North Carolina, and then served in the army before returning to Montana to work as a hunting guide. He discovered that elk were being culled by the government in Yellowstone Park and in 1961 he hitch-hiked to Washington DC to ask the Secretary of the Interior to move the chosen elk to Montana, where they could be shot by Knievel's hunters.

His petition was successful, although it is unclear whether his gift of a pair of antlers swayed the Secretary's decision.

(emphasis added)

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