Webster
Wins Cosmopolitan Magazine's "Fun
Fearless Female" Search Contest
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Jan. 26, 2006) – Lora Webster,
a cancer survivor who has a smile that lights up a room and a
bronze medal from the 2004 Paralympic Games, is also a "Fun
Fearless Female," according to Cosmopolitan magazine.
Webster
(Cave Creek, Ariz.), one of the stars of the USA Women's National
Sitting
Volleyball Team, was recently
named the winner
of Cosmo's "Fun Fearless Female Reader Search" contest
(sponsored by Maybelline New York and Garnier).
The 19-year-old freshman at Paradise Valley Community College
in Phoenix was selected from a group of four finalists by a panel
of Cosmo editors and is featured in the current (February 2006)
issue of the magazine.
Webster
will also receive $10,000, a year's worth of Maybelline New
York and
Garnier products with a combined
value of $500 and
a trip to Los Angeles for a Cosmo "Fun Fearless Female" party
next month.
The magazine received more than 1,000 entries after announcing
the contest in September 2005 and chose a group of 10 semifinalists
for the award. Four finalists were then selected from a combination
of reader votes and Cosmo editor votes and flown to New York
City in October to take part in a 10-hour photo shoot and interviews
with the contest judges.
"It's very exciting!" said Webster of the honor. "It
has been a whirlwind. I entered in mid-September. I found out
I was a semifinalist two days later…I was in New York a
month after that and I found out I won the contest at the beginning
of November. It has been an amazing experience all around.
 |
2004 Paralympic
Games |
"
One of the people that works at Cosmo called me the other day
and told me she received an e-mail from a girl that I played
basketball with in the third grade who remembered me and who
knew me when I was going though my illness and everything," said
Webster. "I thought that was very exciting. You know it's
out there but you don't really think that people are reading
it. To hear something like that really hits you. It's surreal
in the first place but it kind of pulled it all together when
that happened. That was probably the most exciting thing – plus
being in the magazine, of course."
How does she feel about being a role model for other girls?
"I don't think I have ever thought of myself that way," Webster
admits. "But I hope that if girls read the story it will
give them the outlook on life that nothing can hold them back,
regardless if they have a physical disability or if they're self-conscious,
whatever their hang up is about themselves. I hope that's one
message that comes across."
Webster,
who will be transferring to the University of Nebraska in the
fall,
plans on majoring in physical therapy
because "I
know I want to help people since I have been through a lot from
a rehabilitation aspect."
Webster, who had her left leg amputated after being diagnosed
with bone cancer at the age of 11, was one of the main reasons
the USA Women made history on Sept. 27, 2004, when it captured
the bronze medal at the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece, with
a 3-1 win over Slovenia.
The medal was the first of any kind at the Paralympics for any
of the disabled volleyball programs (sitting or standing, men's
or women's).
She scored a team-high 19 points in the 25-20, 10-25, 25-18,
25-20 victory for the United States, which finished the tournament
with a record of 4-3 in just their second year of existence as
a team.
Webster, 19, had a match-high nine service aces, five kills
and five blocks in the medal-clinching win and finished first
on Team USA and seventh among all players with 79 points on 48
kills, 18 blocks and 13 aces.
Bottom
Photo courtesy of Bill Hamiter
Reprinted
from USA Volleyball Rotations Online Newsletter
Feb
2006
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