Delaney McKeown
Faith in Her Future
Delaney McKeown is a 16-year-
old who has a work ethic that most
adults could only dream about. She
is described as a leader among her
peers in her spot on student council.
She participates in multiple sports,
including basketball (where she is
the varsity captain), cheerleading,
volleyball, and track. She is seen as a
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leader both off and on the court. She
does all this in addition to her full-
load of classes.
“She has received numerous
awards on the state and local level
in both cheer and basketball, earn-
ing district honor in track and
volleyball, all while juggling a full
academic schedule with two to
three sports overlapping at a time,”
said Alysha Pearson, Marketing and
Business Development Assistant for
Weatherford Christian.
It is a schedule that even her
educator mom, Courtney McKeown,
is in awe of.
“She has an internal desire to
work really hard,” said McKeown.
“I’ve worked with kids my entire life,
so I can tell that she has a terrific
work ethic for a 16-year-old. The first
time I saw her desire to work and
help someone else, besides doing
things she had done when she was
little, was when she helped raise
money for a little girl who is the
daughter of a family friend we knew
with cancer.”
The money raised was for a
little girl named Brooke Hester,
who was diagnosed with Stage 4
Neuroblastoma. Delaney and her
friend Bailey Gavin started rais-
ing money for the little girl when
they were in the fifth grade, making
duck-tape wallets and selling them
to everyone they knew. The story
impacted the girls so much that they
wanted to do more than make and
sell wallets.
“We wanted to create an event
about how she impacted our lives
and were inspired by how the family
relied on God throughout all of it,”
Delaney said. “We were inspired by
the little girl’s and the parents’ faith.
We picked the event location at
Chandor Gardens and the food from
Whistle Hill.”
The event was called “Faith,
Fashion and Flowers,” and Delaney
and her friends raised $13,000 to
give to the charity Brooke’s Blossoms,
which makes flower headbands that
are delivered to little girls throughout
the hospital.
This upcoming April, Delaney
and other students will be attending