News from May 24, 2007 issue

Local News
The Crittenden Press (3 pages) PDF
(Selected pages 1A, 4B, 6B)
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GRADUATION 2007
Ceremonies for the graduating class of 2007 from Crittenden County High School are set for this week, with all services held at Rocket Arena. The schedule is as follows:
• Baccalaureate, 7 p.m., Wednesday
• Class Night, 6 p.m., Thursday
• Commencement, 7 p.m., Friday

Kelsey Thompson (center) chats with classmate
Trisha Maclin during commencement practice
this week at Rocket Arena.

Graduation special for Thompson
She probably won’t be at all happy to see her face and name on the front of this newspaper, but Kelsey Thompson has been an inspiration to those who have followed her struggle with cancer.
This week, she takes another big step in her life. Thompson graduates this Friday, walking across the stage to receive a diploma like all of her fellow Crittenden County High School seniors.
The 18-year-old shies away from the spotlight and seems quite uncomfortable talking about the nine-year fight with her disease. But it was not always certain she would be around to wear a cap and gown, her mom Kathy said Monday morning while watching seniors in Rocket Arena mingle after practicing for their big night.
“Kelsey’s my baby,” the mother of two previous graduates said. “That’s why this has been so tough.”
The youngest of Kathy and Larry Thompson’s three children, Kelsey was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of nine.
Half of her life has been consumed by cancer, and maybe that’s why she is so looking forward to getting away to Murray State University next fall. Her mom says she may finally be able to be Kelsey Thompson at Murray – just another teenager living on her own for the first time, struggling to get up for early classes and eating lots of pizza and junk food.
“I think she’s ready to start anew,” Kathy said, sitting next to her daughter’s bone marrow donor who flew in from Pennsylvania for graduation this week.
“It’s nice to see her all grown up,” Beth Hawthorne said.
Hawthorne first met the little girl to whom she gave another shot at life atop the Empire State Building in New York. It was a little more than a year after Kelsey’s March 2000 bone marrow transplant at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville. Since that time, the 44-year-old mother of two has watched Kelsey and her friends grow up. In fact, she has become what she calls a second mom to Kelsey.
“Had I not done it, she might not be here,” the donor said of her painful operation to remove the bone marrow from her pelvic area.
You might understand why she feels that way when you consider Kelsey has spent more than 200 days in the hospital, had countless days of sickness and pain, lost her hair twice to intense chemotherapy and radiation and missed half of two school years and all of the sixth grade.
“She was worried about her hair. We were worried if she was going to live,” Kathy said, with tears starting to well in the corners of her eyes.
Kelsey never fell behind in school, despite missing almost two years of class time. She never wanted to leave her friends like Sam Peek and Kelsey Simpson whom she will graduate with on Friday.
Though she’s anxious to leave behind “the drama” she lives with every day in the community that has embraced and backed her, Kelsey has accepted her disease. This summer, she will be a counselor-in-training at Camp Horizon, a camp near Nashville for children with cancer. Her mom says the teen wants to study to be a child-life specialist, helping kids and families cope with serious illnesses.
But more important than preparing for a career and independence that could one day bring about marriage and a family, Hawthorne said Kelsey’s time away will give her something even more precious.
“She’ll become Kelsey Thompson.”