Students crown freshman with cancer as homecoming queen
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BEAVERTON, Ore. - It's a homecoming "first" for Beaverton High School.
Last Thursday night they crowned a homecoming queen - but this year the school selected a freshman.
Maddie Lauer, 14, won the overwhelming popular vote and it was a big surprise for her during halftime at the school’s football game Thursday night.
Maddie has a very rare form of thyroid cancer and was diagnosed last November. Earlier this year, Maddie traveled to Hawaii thanks to Make-A-Wish Oregon.
But it was a totally different wish coming true on Thursday. "It's crazy,” Maddie said after she was crowned with a tiara at midfield.
“These guys were incredible, what they did for Maddie,” her father Dan Lauer said of the vote by the students. “I'm shocked and really excited for her. Thanks to everybody."
Maddie is currently going through an experimental treatment program but is surrounded by support from her friends at Beaverton High School as well as her family and community.
Rest in peace Maddie. Your sweet spirit touched many.
Pretty awesome of the kids to do that. And it just might be something that helps Maddie in her fight. Positive feelings within one's self and from others really can make a big difference in how our bodies respond to cancer and other diseases.
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Kudos to the great kids at Beaverton, and GO MADDIE!!
As a friend and neighbor of the Lauer family, I've known Maddie since she was tiny. She has a strong will, a strong family and a network of friends, classmates and parents who are with her every step of the way in this battle against cancer. What the students of Beaverton High School did was an incredible show of love and support for one of their own. It was totally unexpected and really touched everyone who knows and loves Maddie. Thank you to the student body of BHS for making an already special evening one that we all will remember forever.
Sounds like she has a good friend and ally in you, also!
Beaverton High School..... Class all the way.
2 things!
1) All you kids from  Beaverton High School; damn good form! Don't let these few fools talking out their butts discourage you, that was a awsome thing to do!
2) Maddie; good luck and lots of prayers for your treatment! Don't let go of that wonderful smile!
Well done BHS! Its great to see and I agree with Just Lookin highly! A beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that does not mean the outside alone, the inner person is and can be more beautiful!Â
Total class! Way to go Beaverton High School!
What about the kids with ADD or depression or poor kids or ugly kids or unpopular kids? Â Could we crown them too?
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 @archon312 It happens everyday. Just because someone looks nice physically does not signify an absence of problems whether it be "ADD or depression or poor kids". We all have our challenges.
Thank you to the kids who can show some support and caring. It seems their parents instilled some thought and caring for others in their children.
Great job !
Very touching and very classy. Kudos to the kids of BHS. I wish this little girl well in her fight against cancer and pray for her to respond well to treatment.Â
First class, BHS! Bravo to all of you!
Nice story and gesture, no matter what some of these posters say. Classy move.
What a heartwarming story. The Beaverton HS students really are to be commended for their selfless act. I don't see this as "pity" homecoming story, I see it as a great big hug of support from a great group of peers. Way to go BHS, you are awesome! Prayers to Maddie and her family for success with the treatments, and for continued strength and hope.Â
Standing next to those other girls, man she really is a freshman.
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Good for her and good for her peers. Everyone 2 years or more out of high school knows that the stuff we did in whatever it was we did it in was just about meaningless. It felt important, and we were passionate about it, but it was a lot of "...sound and fury, signifying nothing."
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The only thing that means anything is the memories we take. This girl will remember this, and the other girls will remember being there for a fellow student.
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Hearing an awful lot of these pity homecoming stories lately. It's not coming from the heart. The other girls will continue to not be her friend next week.Â
 @on shing dao As someone who graduated from BHS I know first hand that this was not a pity vote nor was it a vote to make the students look good. The student body, as a whole, has always banded together to do what is right and this little girl deserved that crown. So many of us just want that crown for various popularity reasons, but she never expected it. To me that shows that BHS knows how special she is. BHS strives to make everyone feel welcomed and they did just that.
 @tias Sure it was. So much superficiality at that school. I knew people from there in college. Stuck up, self entitled kids.
 @on shing dao I'm appalled at your post. Total lack of class on your part. You should be ashamed.
 @shek069 You lecturing me about class? That's a CLASSic.
 @on shing dao And you are not going to be forgotten as a jerk either...
 @BCH mom I don't plan on it.
@on shing dao Jealousy doesn't suit you. You may not act like it, but you're too old to be a Homecoming Queen. Grow up and move on.
Playanekes,
Hilarious comeback, thank you for the laugh!
 @on shing dao It's not a "pity vote", it's called being a decent human being. Making these people the center of attention for a few brief moments, particularly when their life may be cut severely short, is worth loads of kudos. These kids know that they might not be the most popular people in the school, but in one moment those around them have said, "We have seen you, we know you're going through hard times. You're not alone."
@advocatus diaboli @on shing dao .......you're wasting your time on this screwball shing dao. He wouldn't know what being a decent human being means.
 @Rob C 503 I'm certainly not going to model myself after a KATU community member. Decency doesn't exist here.
 @advocatus diaboli They don't know what she has been going through. She has cancer. Many just want to live normal lives, not to be patronized by the public to be displayed as a tender act by an otherwise apathetic student body.
 @on shing dao   I am a teacher at BHS and the students there are anything but apathetic. I am, (and have been over the past 15 years), amazed and humbled by their grace and sense of strong community. May she rest in peace.
@on shing dao Well, I'll ease up on you, then, I'm sure you mean well. It's a very lonely and isolating disease. Sometimes you find out people that you thought were friends were pretty quick to write you off, and others avoid you because they don't know what to say. You feel invisible. I can't imagine how difficult it is for a child to go through this, but she seems like a fighter and is surrounded by some great family, friends and classmates. There are a lot of cruelties with this disease, but these kids at BHS just did an amazing act of kindness for someone who could really use a kindness or two. I think it's wonderful. And proud of all those who helped put that beautiful smile on her lovely face.
 @Kachina No, which is why I won't know what it's like, unless it's in my karma to get it. I don't have much cancer in my family but you never know. If I got it, I wouldn't treat it.
@on shing dao @advocatus diaboli Have YOU ever had cancer?
@on shing dao @advocatus diaboli Did she delegate you to speak for her or a you just belching smog from your tailpipe because you enjoy your own fumes?
I gotta agree - it might be a pity vote. It is a vote however that many in the school participated in and they wanted it. So good for them -even If it was just to make them feel better. It certainly made the young ladies day for many days to come hopefully.