ENID, Okla. — On March 6, 2004, a family got the worst news possible. It was cancer, leukemia.
When her final blood tests came back, her doctor called and said, “Get to OU Medical center, now.” The challenging and heartbreaking journey for Amy Barnes and her family had begun. “I will never forget that day,” said her husband, Brett, middle school principal at Chisholm, sniffling as he talked.
“Everything changed and it would never be the same.” “I had never seen my dad cry,” Brylee, his daughter, said. “I walked into his office when he was having lunch alone.
” Brylee is a senior at Chisholm High School, and her father is across the parking lot at the Chisholm campus. Amy’s journey had hit the entire Chisholm family hard. The support has been ongoing.
“I thought it mainly touched Chisholm, but of course, it has touched Enid, too,” Brett said. More than 300 people from Enid, Hennessey and Alva donated blood. It became a Northwest Oklahoma story with many fundraisers and large numbers of people showing up to support Amy and her family.
There was a golf tournament, raffles and jars in local businesses. “I was really surprised at how many people came to the fundraiser in Hennessey,” said Connie Barnes. She and her husband, Gene, who was a longtime teacher in Hennessey, had lived in that community for 40 years.
They moved to Enid about a year ago because they each had farms in Lahoma and Fairmont. Brylee and brother Brayson, who is starting his freshm.