Oregon teens campaign to have special needs student elected Prom Queen

TORONTO – An incredible gesture has become a memory one girl will never forget, after a group of students at an Oregon high school campaigned to have a friend with special needs elected Prom Queen.

Eighteen-year-old Katie Shipley suffers from a rare chromosome disorder, and has a form of dementia. Doctors said Shipley likely wouldn’t live to see her 18th birthday.

But in a few short weeks, Shipley will graduate from Southridge High School in Beaverton, Oregon. and the touching campaign started when she admitted a simple dream to her friends.

Not win, just be nominated. And so, behind her back, Katie’s friends and classmates began campaigning to make it happen.

“We kind of just told the whole school and it just happened,” said Katie’s friend, Taylor Chapman.

The work spread quickly among the seniors at Southridge High, and soon Katie was chosen as “Prom Princess”, one of the nominees for Prom Queen.

WATCH: Katie’s friends recorded the moment she found out she had been nominated for Prom Queen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqJpBH0UQc

But it didn’t stop there. The night of the senior prom in downtown Portland, Katie found herself on stage with the rest of the “Prom Court”, waiting to hear who the students had voted King and Queen.

And like the most touching scene from a movie brought to life, Shipley heard the crowd begin to stir.

“They were shouting out my name. ‘Katie Katie Katie!’,” she said.

And wouldn’t you know it: Katie was announced as the 2015 Prom Queen. In fact, she was elected by the largest margin of anyone in school history.

“This is just every little girl’s dream,” Shipley’s grandmother, Joan Fraley, said. “For it to actually happen, and now she’s queen, it’s wonderful.”

“This shows them they are just like everybody else. You are beautiful, you are precious. God loves you just the way he made you,” said Fraley.

For her part, Shipley says she’s incredibly grateful to her friends for making a dream come true.

“I just want to say thank you to my friends for all they did for me,” Shipley said. “I love you all.”