Today I heard that I lost a former student.

I just found out about this today, Derek Giles was in my Alg II class last year.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article965754.ece

TRINITY — For most of last year, Nicholas Plank couldn't drive his cherry red, convertible BMW because his license was suspended.

On Thursday, the 21-year-old got it back.

Barely two days later, he was driving it in the darkness on State Road 54 when he collided head-on with another vehicle.

Plank died at the scene early Saturday morning, as did his friend and passenger, Derek Giles, 17. Both were from Palm Harbor.

The driver of the other vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee, also died. Dorly Kelly, 36, of New Port Richey, was wearing a medical uniform, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Kelly's husband, Edward, answered their home phone crying. He is 70 years old.

"I thought I would have been gone first," he said, sobbing, and hung up the phone.

Plank was traveling above the posted speed limit of 55 mph heading west toward Duck Slough Boulevard when he lost control of the BMW, troopers said.

Investigators concluded he swerved to the right and then overcorrected, veering left before crashing over the median and into the path of the Jeep going the opposite direction.

They hit head-on. It was 5 a.m.

"Even if he's going speed limit, that's a 110-mile an hour impact," said Highway Patrol Sgt. Steve Gaskins about the deadly collision. "That kind of speed and that kind of impact, there's not a lot you can do."

As the sun rose, troopers found skid marks stretching hundreds of feet.

Troopers were investigating what caused Plank to lose control. They believe the BMW's excessive speed was a chief factor, Gaskins said.

Blood from both drivers was being tested for alcohol and drugs, as is routine fatal accidents. The road condition was clear, he said, with very little other traffic, if any at all.

Kelly was wearing a seat belt and going the speed limit, Gaskins said. Plank and Giles were not buckled up.

Plank's license was suspended in April for financial responsibility, which usually indicates a problem with car insurance, Gaskins said. Records show it was reinstated on Thursday.

Plank has received several traffic citations, including speeding and driving with a suspended license. He got a ticket in 2006 for going 46 mph in a 30 mph zone. In 2007, he was cited for going 57 mph in a 40 mph zone.

Troopers were still trying to determine Saturday where the victims had been before the crash and where they were headed.

Gaskins said troopers presumed Kelly was on her way to work because of her dress.

Friends said they didn't know what the young men were doing Saturday morning. But on Friday night, Giles had sent a text message to a friend and her cousin Aliesha Aguilar, 19. He said he was bored and wanted to see them.

But they were at the Pier in St. Petersburg, and didn't want to drive to Palm Harbor to pick him up.

"This morning I just keep thinking, I would have made sure he got home safe," said Aguilar, a senior who went to school with him at Pinellas Park High.

Giles was looking forward to enlisting in the Army as soon as he graduated this spring, friends said. He had already completed some training, his friends said. He loved to say he was "Army strong."

"He walked with his head up high. He was so proud of what he did," Aguilar said.

She said he acted like a protective older brother to his friends and urged them to stay in school.

Giles knew Plank through mutual friends at Publix, where Plank worked in the deli, said co-worker and friend Mike Wiseley, 21, of Palm Harbor.

Plank, whom Wiseley described as honest and hard working, had just started driving the BMW again. He had repairs done and worked out problems with his license, Wiseley said.

"He bought that thing himself," Wiseley said. "He was way proud of that car. He loved it."

I can't say Derek was a bad kid. A bit of a handful and disruptive at times, but generally made me laugh. When I went back to cover the Trig class he was in, I met a more mature, more serious Derek. He was in his Army camouflage that day and I have to admit, I was impressed. I really didn't know him for long, but it was long enough to get to know him and watch him grow. I sort of feel like I lost a good friend or like I lost my own kid.

RIP Bettie Page

She will be missed

1950s pin-up queen Bettie Page dies
Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:30pm
EST

By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bettie Page, one of America's most photographed pin-up girls during the 1950s, died in Los Angeles on Thursday from pneumonia, her agent said. She was 85.

Page was a ubiquitous sight during the 1950s, propelled to stardom when she posed for Playboy as Miss January 1955. Soon her image was gracing playing cards, record albums and bedroom posters across the country.

She stopped modeling in 1957, retreated from the public spotlight and turned to religion. She enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the 1980s, as a new generation of fans became obsessed with her legacy.

Her agent, Mark Roesler, said Page was admitted to a Los Angeles-area hospital four weeks ago. She never regained consciousness after suffering a heart attack earlier this month.

With her dark bangs, alluring blue-gray eyes and wide smile, Page cultivated an innocent girl-next-door persona. The one-time school teacher was nice, but clearly also naughty. Some of her photos featured spanking and bondage.

"Bettie Page embodied the stereotypical wholesomeness of the Fifties and the hidden sexuality straining beneath the surface," authors Karen Essex and James L. Swanson wrote in their 1996 book "Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend."

Page professed to be mystified by all the attention, saying she never felt particularly attractive and had to wear a lot of makeup to cover up her large pores. After she found God, she was initially ashamed of having posed nude.

"(B)ut now most of the money I've got is because I posed in the nude," she told Playboy last year. "So I'm not ashamed of it now, but I still don't understand it."
Bettie Mae Page was born on April 22, 1923, in Nashville, one of six children. She and two sisters were sent to an orphanage after her father went to jail and her mother could not cope on her own. Page later described her father as "a sex fiend" who started sexually molesting her when she was 13.

Page, armed with an arts degree with Peabody College in Nashville, did her first modeling work in the 1940s after moving to San Francisco with the first of her three husbands. After they divorced in 1947, she pursued modeling in New York. Photos from a shoot with Miami photographer Bunny Yeager ended up in the pages of Playboy.
The layout featured Page winking at the camera wearing only a Santa hat as she decorated a Christmas tree. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner described it as "a milestone in the history of the magazine," which he had founded less than two years earlier.
Later in life, Page was furious that Yeager made a fortune from the photos and never
compensated her.

Some American lawmakers were not as impressed with her modeling abilities. Page was served with a subpoena to appear before U.S. Senate investigators trying to discover a link between juvenile delinquency and pornography. Page never appeared. Soon after, she completely disappeared from the scene.

After two other brief marriages failed, Page battled acute schizophrenia beginning in the early 1970s. Her comeback gathered momentum with the 1991 movie "The Rocketeer," based on a comic book where the hero's girlfriend was Page. Fan clubs and websites proliferated, and Page made a good living signing memorabilia at conventions. On the rare occasions that she gave interviews, she insisted that she not be photographed.
Page had no children.

There was no immediate information about funeral plans.