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The Victoria College. Full-time salaried position with benefits available...
DISTRICT "Champions for Community Wellness" has the following positions...
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Danielle Corder exclaims, her heels clicking on the floor.
The door opens, and in walks a handsome man, wearing jeans and his famous hat and cowboy boots.
“Hey, how are you?” country music star Chris Cagle asks. “You look beautiful.”
He hugs the flustered Memorial High School 10th-grader while close friends and family wipe away tears.
“I’ve never been to prom,” the 39-year-old Cagle says, grinning. “This will be fun.”
Cagle learned of Danielle’s story and her desire to go to prom when Corder and her mother, Nipal, attended a charity benefit at a ranch in Fort Worth, where he provided entertainment.
Danielle never made it through the auction at the benefit. She took sedative medicine and went to sleep in the ranch’s bus. When Cagle inquired about the incident, Nipal told him about her daughter’s condition.
Danielle suffers from a rare form of epilepsy. She and her mother fear seizures from the slightest influences. Watching television or a computer screen, even fluorescent light, may give her pain or cause a seizure.
Her mom compares the effects of her seizures to her typing a document on the computer, then losing power and losing all the information.
“She lost all her info,” the mother said. “That is a seizure.”
Nipal also told Cagle how she tried to take Danielle to one of his concerts for her Sweet 16, but they had to leave because of the lights.
“She doesn’t really have the average 17-year-old life,” Nipal said.
When Nipal told Cagle how Danielle’s date for the homecoming dance had stood her up, he told her that wouldn’t happen for her prom.
Cagle signed one of his photos, “Bella, Will you go to prom with me? Chris Cagle,” and left the photo beside Danielle, still asleep in the ranch’s bus. Bella is a nickname her mother gave Danielle.
When Danielle woke up, the message didn’t quite register at first.
“I think God just moved his heart. He heard my story and he felt compassion,” Danielle said. “God worked through him to bless somebody, which that would be me.”
Cagle cleared his schedule to drive his Hummer to Victoria and take Danielle to the prom.
“If I had a daughter someday, God willing, I would want somebody would take care of her,” Cagle said. “That’s what country music is all about.”
Cagle, in prom tradition, took photos with Danielle and family. He sent pink flowers that morning and signed the pink guitar Danielle received as a gift.
He tuned the new guitar as Danielle watched, mesmerized. She knows piano already and wants to learn guitar, which would help with her motor skills and neurological condition.
Her friends couldn’t be happier for Danielle’s special night.
“I think it’s great for her to have that experience,” Lauren Alexander, a St. Joseph sophomore, said. “She hasn’t let being homeschooled hold her back at all.”
Her teacher witnessed Danielle’s happiness when Cagle arrived.
“She has a heart of gold. She’s just beautiful inside and out,” said Brenda Ruschaupt, general education homebound teacher for VISD. “Her dream is coming true, that she is able to attend the prom, and I am just so thrilled, exhilarated and pleased.”
When Danielle and Cagle arrived at the Arabian Nights-themed prom, under a starry night, everyone gazed at the pair. Students snapped photos of Danielle and her date, and those brave enough to ask got autographs and photos with the country star.
After entering the ballroom, Danielle and her mother danced first when the DJ played Cagle’s “Country by the Grace of God.” Danielle and Cagle danced next, to Lonestar’s “Amazed.”
Danielle said she’s just glad she got to go to prom.
“Most of the time, my life is very home-based,” she said.
She felt magical in her custom-made pink dress, a Prince Charming on her arm.
“That’s what prom is all about,” Nipal said. “You get to be Cinderella for a night.”
Tara Bozick is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6504 or tbozick@vicad.com.