As part of Koryn Keck’s dream trip to Hawai’i, she and her family had intended to attend last Sunday’s Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium on O’ahu, but weren’t able to get tickets to the National Football League all-star game. Hearing
As part of Koryn Keck’s dream trip to Hawai’i, she and her family had intended to attend last Sunday’s Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium on O’ahu, but weren’t able to get tickets to the National Football League all-star game.
Hearing about that situation, Kalowena C. Komeiji of the Hawai’i Tourism Authority and Gary Baldwin, a businessman and member of the Kaua’i County Planning Commission, covered the cost of bringing Keck and her parents, Kaylene and Douglas Keck, to Kaua’i for the NFL Quarterback Challenge at Vidinha Stadium.
“I can’t say enough about Mr. Baldwin. He is the reason we are here,” said Kaylene Keck.
Koryn, 18, is battling cancer. Her trip to Hawai’i was organized by Dreamcatchers, a program of the Children Cancer Association in Portland, Ore.
Throughout the day, the Kecks, who are from Salem, Ore., were visited by members of the Kaua’i Chamber of Commerce and the Kaua’i Visitors Bureau and business leaders of the island.
Koryn Keck said she was impressed by all the quarterbacks who competed, but her favorites were former San Francisco 49ers great Steve Young and Jake Plummer of the Arizona Cardinals.
Keck said she likes Young because she and her family and Young are members of the Church of Jesus of Latter-Day Saints and because she admires “his morals and values.”
“With all his fame or whatever you want to call it, it never got to him,” Keck said.
Plummer also is another of her favorites because of his “down-to-earth” attitude about life, Keck said.
She said she and her parents met Plummer at a dinner for the star quarterbacks at Whaler’s Brewpub and found him to be “incredible, very friendly.”
“He wanted to know about me and listened,” she said.
Keck said she grew up loving football because sports has been a major part of her upbringing. Her mother’s father attended Brigham Young University in Utah, has a lifelong interest in the school and has followed Young’s career.
Kecks’ father, a 1964 graduate of Brigham Young, was a quarterback in high school and played football for BYU.
During Thursday’s Quarterback Challenge, Keck and her parents got a bird’s eye view of all the pro players from a stand for guests in the end zone.
Lt. Governor Mazie Hirono and her aides also paid a visit to the Kecks. Of Koryn, Hirono remarked, “She is a remarkable young lady.”
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
