Boerne student overcomes brain cancer, donates livestock earnings to St. Jude Children’s

Before the bidding began at the Kendall County Junior Livestock auction, Madeline Barber gave the auctioneer a handwritten note.

“I would like to give back to the people who saved my life,” she wrote, “and give other children the chance to live and do what they want.”

It said she was donating 100 percent of her earnings from the pigs she’d raised to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where she was treated for brain cancer five years ago.

After the broker read the note, an estimated crowd of more than 600 people cheered and applauded the teen, nicknamed Maddie. Standing on stage at the Kendall County Youth Agriculture & Equestrian Center in Boerne, her eyes widened as multiple bid cards rose in the air for her second-place hog.

Maddie’s family looked on with pride. Her mother, Tally Barber, 45, wept at the crowds’ generous outpouring. Four minutes later, the bids totaled $30,500.

The day before the show, Maddie asked her father, Travis Barber, 44, if he was OK with her plan. “Absolutely!” he said.

“Madeline, you’re a special young lady,” the auctioneer said. “What a phenomenal drive.”

The Boerne-Champion High School junior smiled as the crowd rose to their feet, clapped, whooped and whistled in support of her goodwill gesture.

“That’s just Maddie,” her father said. “She recognized she had an opportunity to raise funds. None of this would have happened without this community. The livestock community is a very giving community.”

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Maddie and her family talked about the recent whirlwind of media coverage about her donation on their Hill Country farm. In the distance, the hogs’ snorts and squeals echoed from the one-story steel barn across the Barber’s property.

“I was super excited,” Maddie, 17, said. “I literally dropped my jaw and looked at my mom and said, ‘Whoa!’”

Maddie is a National FFA organization officer and member of the National Honor Society. She began raising hogs in the eighth grade. A friend’s older sister wanted to show animals, but she didn’t have a place to raise them. So the Barbers invited the girls to use their barn and land. Maddie joined her friends and began showing pigs in 4-H competitions.

Maddie and her brother, Ryan, 15, feed their hogs, a Cross, a Duroc and two Yorkshires, before school. After school, the siblings pour out feed for the pigs, brush and condition them and walk them around the rustic land. Raising livestock and studies take up much of Maddie’s time, but there’s always time to listen to her favorite artist, Taylor Swift.

Before raising livestock, she played volleyball, a pastime that came to a halt in 2017. Maddie began to have intense headaches that caused nausea. Her pediatrician Juan Ferreris accompanied the family when she had MRI scans.

Maddie was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a brain tumor of the cerebellum at the base of the skull that controls motor skills.

“When your child is diagnosed with cancer, there are just words you never think that you’re going to hear,” Tally Barber said, “and it takes your breath away.”

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On July 3, 2017, Maddie’s first surgery took place at The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio.

Then began a year-long treatment at St. Jude. Maddie had radiation treatment and occupational, physical and speech therapies each day. Her mother said the doctors and hospital staff were fantastic with the care of their daughter.

“They didn’t just look at treating the cancer — they treat the whole child,” Tally Barber said. “They provided support for her brother and took care of the whole family. I don’t have the words to say how appreciative we are.”

Whenever Maddie missed the family’s dogs — Chloe, Nikki, and Penny — her brother would FaceTime her so she could spend as much time seeing her pets.

Maddie missed her seventh-grade year of school and remotely took classes for eighth grade. She remembers days of shorn hair and sessions where she relearned motor functions and how to speak.

She’s been cancer-free since 2018. She travels to St. Jude in Memphis for a check-up and scans every six months.

The recent auction wasn’t the first time the Boerne community rallied to support Maddie and her family. When word spread about Maddie’s diagnosis, residents started a “Maddie Strong” campaign four years ago. They blanketed the town with blue ribbons and sent her care packages.

Maddie’s first-grade teacher, Krista Kimball, and her students sent a “box of sunshine” filled with envelopes she could open each day. The teen’s kindergarten teacher, Kathy Hefley, made Maddie Strong T-shirts. And the principal and music teacher at her former elementary school sent videos of them singing to her.

“We had amazing support from our community,” Tally Barber said. “They couldn’t do enough to love on Maddie and love on us. It was wonderful.”

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Since his children have been involved with FFA, Travis Barber said they’ve taken on leadership roles and their confidence has grown.

Now, Maddie uses her left hand to guide her pigs even though she’s right-handed. The tumor caused the loss of mobility on her right side, but she’s fought to regain full motion and balance.

Her agriculture teachers, Cheyanne Waltman and Tori Thornton, were at the show barn for their student’s surprise offering, cheering her on.

“That truly is Maddie,” Thornton said. “She doesn’t ask for anything and wants to give back to St. Jude —- the reason that we can spend time with her today.”

The teen is one of 103 active members in the school’s FFA program.

“It’s been amazing to be a part of,” Waltman said, “and have those moments with Maddie. She’s always there to lend a hand. If we need anything, she’s there.”

Maddie is interested in agriculture and possibly attending Texas A&M University. Throughout her journey, she’s strived to uphold the FFA creed, not through words, but deeds. She embraces all of the tenets, especially the line, “less need for charity and more of it when needed.”

“That,” Maddie said, “is what I would like to live by.”

vtdavis@express-news.net