Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Class act at Hidden Valley High School
Students chose a most deserving homecoming queen in 18-year-old Ashton Trescott.
GARLAND GAY Special to The Roanoke Times
Ashton Trescott (left) stands with Hidden Valley High School's homecoming court at halftime of Friday night's game against Northside High. With her are (from left) homecoming king Jonathan Hartranft, homecoming prince Mitch McClure and homecoming princess Lindsay Skolrood.
GARLAND GAY Special to The Roanoke Times
Ashton Trescott
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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The bad news Friday night at Hidden Valley High School was that the Titans lost a homecoming game heartbreaker 20-18 in the final minute to rival Northside High.
But what the huge crowd will undoubtedly remember is the good news that happened during a heartwarming halftime.
That's when Ashton Trescott took the homecoming queen crown to a standing ovation by onlookers who were both choking up and cheering.
A month ago I told you the story of Ashton, 18, and her mom, Leah Baker, 36. Ashton has Down syndrome and autism, and this summer doctors at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., diagnosed her with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Ashton's day-to-day life skills have diminished quickly. Her condition is terminal. Nobody knows how much time she has left.
When Hidden Valley senior Kayla Osborne and some of her pals learned about Ashton's diagnosis, "that just kind of touched us," Osborne told me Monday.
"We felt that we should do something to make her senior year special for her and her mom."
Kayla, 18, talked it over with her friend, Jordan McDonald, 17, a self-described organizer who already had created a Facebook page for the school's entire senior class.
Meanwhile, another senior, Alyson Krempels, had something similar in mind. Her lunch group brainstormed an idea to nominate Ashton for homecoming court.
Alyson asked Jordan to pass on that plan to the senior class through her Facebook group. Mission accomplished.
From there the "crown Ashton" movement snowballed and picked up steam throughout the school. It was probably one of the worst-kept secrets in Hidden Valley history.
Ashton was among the five girls (and five boys) nominated to the court by Hidden Valley students during the second week of September.
The final voting occurred a couple of weeks later. By last week, only a few people knew the results.
But it seemed like everybody at the school was betting heavily on Ashton. Prior to the announcement, Hidden Valley moms were calling me, saying how proud they were of the students.
Leah Baker and I spoke Sunday, the day after Hidden Valley's homecoming dance, where students cheered Ashton once again as she walked in on the arm of homecoming king Jonathan Hartranft.
A grateful Baker choked up in describing what the weekend had meant to both her and her daughter.
"The people love her here, and when a community stands behind a kid like that, it shows the compassion, and empathy that they care about people. It's not just me, me, me, me."
Every now and then, you hear adults voicing fears about teens. They sometimes display rotten manners, seem distracted by relentless texting and occasionally do really dumb things.
But we have to recognize their selfless acts, too. This is one of those occasions.
Dawn Erdman, whose daughter is a junior at Hidden Valley, put it best in an e-mail.
"Our teenagers may 'get on our last nerves' sometimes, but last evening wasn't one of those times!"
On Monday, Baker and Ashton awoke at 4 a.m. and drove to Durham for an appointment at Duke's memory disorders center.
It's pretty clear what the future holds for Ashton.
A day will come when she can't remember being the center of attention, or the standing ovations, or the dance or her crown.
But for now, it is glued to her head.
And Baker will never forget.
