Walking into work Wednesday morning, Diana waved me into her office. “Here are tickets for you, Aaron and Kiera to attend the Chamber banquet.” She said as she handed me three tickets. “The banquet is tomorrow night.”
I didn’t have anything planned for Thursday night except to work a little late, so I happily accepted the tickets and went off to tell Aaron. I was really excited that they had given a ticket to Kiera. I knew she would enjoy going to the banquet and I immediately made the decision to take her shopping after work for a new dress.
After work, Aaron and I picked up Kiera from school and told her the news. “What is a banquet?” She asked.
“Well, remember in Frozen, when Elsa had her coronation? It’s kind of like that.” Aaron explained.
Accepting that explanation, she asked her next important question. “May I see my ticket?”
I turned in my seat and handed her the white ticket with the Chamber logo printed on it. “It has Willie’s T’s on it!” She yelled excitedly.“Yes, it does. We are representing Willie’s T’s and will have our own table. “I smiled while I explained to her. Her little face beamed with delight as she looked over her ticket.
We spent the next couple of hours shopping for Kiera a dress and new shoes. That trip, in itself, is a whole other column that I will save for another time. For now, let’s just say that we found the perfect dress that would swirl around her when she twirled and the perfect shoes to match.
Thursday morning arrived and I found myself explaining to Kiera that she did have to go to school and could not go straight to the banquet. After feeling confident that I had gotten through to her, I then spent the next ten minutes explaining why we couldn’t just stay home until it was time to go to the banquet.
We managed to get her to school on time and Aaron and I settled in for a busy day at work. Once our workday ended, I headed home to start getting ready and Aaron went to pick up Kiera. Even though I was in the bedroom getting ready, I knew the instant Kiera entered the front door. I heard the word, “Banquet!” as she ran through the living room, grabbing her dress from where it hung and headed to our room.
When we arrived at the Coliseum, we gently reminded Kiera to “be polite, speak to people when they spoke to her and to shake hands.” As we walked up to the Coliseum, Kiera spotted Mayor Haynes, who had been to her school several months earlier and read to them.
“Can I please go tell him hi?” She asked as she hopped up and down.
Aaron told her yes and she ran ahead of us to greet him. After a few minutes of visiting with other attendees, we made our way to our table. Kiera continued to glow with excitement.
When it was time for the food to be served, we made our way through the line. Kiera decided that she was big enough to carry her plate… all the way across the coliseum back to our table. I carried my own plate and hovered behind her, praying the entire time that she did not drop it.
As we approached our table, State Representative Jim Keffer held out his hands and tried to convince her to give up her plate. She politely declined and continued on her path as she cut between him and another person. Thankfully, we both made it to the table without an accident.
I was so proud of our little girl throughout the meal and as the award ceremony started. She ate her food, carried on conversation, sat quietly as they began to speak from the podium and applauded as people stepped forward to receive their award. I didn’t think I could have been happier.
After some time, she began to get a little restless and Aaron handed her his phone to play on. At one point, she poked me in the side and motioned for me to lean down. “Are we going up there?” She whispered in my ear.
“No, baby.” I whispered back, trying to think how to explain it to her.
“But, we represent Willie’s T’s.” She whispered forcefully.
I hugged her and quietly explained that even though we represented Willie’s T’s, there were people who were being awarded for special things. She accepted my explanation and went back to her game.
Mayor Haynes began to talk about the person that was going to be receive the Volunteer of the Year award. I heard him mention that they had been married in 2006. At that point, my mind wandered for a brief moment. I wondered what it required to win an award of that magnitude. I focused back on Mayor Haynes as he continued his introduction of the person.
“They have been involved in the Brownwood Reunion, Relay for Life…” He continued on. I glanced over to the platform where they were handing out the awards and noticed my friend and one of the photographers, Amanda, was looking in our general direction. ‘It must be someone behind us, ‘I thought to myself. I refrained from looking over my shoulder and focused back on Mayor Haynes.
About that time, I heard the words that sent shock straight to my toes. “5-year-old daughter.” I froze. I glanced down to Kiera and then to Aaron, whose face resembled the shock I was feeling.
Oblivious to our shock, Mayor Haynes continued, “This will be the first time in history that an entire family has been selected for this award, and I am going to start with the 5-year-old daughter, whose name is Kiera. Please join me in recognizing, Kiera, Aaron and Rowonna McNeely.”
Now, I don’t remember a lot during that time. In fact, the only reason I can give you a direct quote of what was said, is because a friend recorded it… thankfully. We were so shocked that I did not even realize that Kiera had kicked her sandals off and went on stage to accept our award barefoot.
Kiera had already stood when she heard her name. Her face was glowing with excitement as Aaron and I stood and we began to walk to the stage to accept our award.
Aaron and I stayed in a state of shock as we stood for pictures and made our way back to the table. We had another surprise waiting for us in the foyer of the Coliseum. Our families had been invited to see us accept our award. Everyone… and I mean… everyone had known about the award for several weeks.
Honestly, it still seems unreal. It is an amazing honor to be given such an award and an even greater honor to be able to accept the award as a family.
Please don’t think that I am taking this opportunity to brag. In fact, we are extremely humbled by this.
We volunteer because we believe in our community and the events that have been held in the past. We want to see our community flourish. We want Kiera to know about the joys of volunteering and helping people. We want her to grow up with a servant’s heart.
We want to thank all those who put our family up for the award and to all those who connived to get us there. A special thanks goes out to our family for traveling down to see us for a brief few minutes. Thank you to the Brownwood Chamber of Commerce for working so hard on the banquet and all the other events throughout the year. And last but not least, thank you to all those who have volunteered with us over the years, working to make one great event after another.
Rowonna McNeely is a graphic artist for Willie’s T’s Screenprint & Embroidery. She is a mother of a five year old girl and step mother of two adult girls. Her crazy life includes a dog, Sloane and psychotic cat, Gracie. Both females. She is married to her prince, who is outnumbered by the opposite gender.
