Scholarship honors Tamaqua senior who died in February

More than 100 students will cross the stage tonight at Tamaqua’s graduation ceremony.

Unfortunately McKayla Ann Wall won’t be one of them. The senior died in February from a pulmonary embolism.

While she won’t be there in person, McKayla’s presence will surely be felt through the memories of her classmates, and a scholarship which will help seven of her fellow Blue Raiders make the journey to college that the young woman had been so excited to make herself. Each student will receive $500 in honor of McKayla.

In 18 years on earth, McKayla touched many lives with a smile and personality that allowed her to talk with anyone. She worked hard, enjoyed concerts with friends and even got to visit Europe.

A few months after her death, her family still struggles daily with the loss, but they’re comforted by the fullness of the years she lived.

“She just had a certain charm. She talked to everybody,” her mother, Lauren Wall, recalled last week.

McKayla loved the quote “She believed she could, so she did.” And she lived by that as well.

Socializing came easy to McKayla from a young age. Combine that with the fact that she was an only child for her first few years, it means that she was a “mini-adult” as her mom recalled.

She attended bingos and would get along with the adults. Lauren’s high school class adopted her as their own.

“She went everywhere with me when she was little. She was my best friend too,” she said.

Grandfather David Schock recalled how when he would take her out to diners or dinners for charity, she would often win over the adults in attendance. He’ll never forget the words of a waitress who was impressed by a 2-year-old McKayla’s sociability.

“She said, ‘This girl is going to be an ambassador someday.’ At that age, she said that,” Schock recalled.

Fearless

Being around adults, she learned that she wanted what they wanted: money.

An entrepreneurial spirit was also evident from an early age.

It started with bracelets and magnets. She would attend craft shows with her great-aunt — who coincidentally died the same day as McKayla — and became known. Her dad, Jesse recalled driving home from work in the evening and seeing a girl in a purple coat toting a wagon down the street. It was McKayla.

A friend told McKayla’s grandmother, Louise, that McKayla came up to him one day at school and said, “You owe me $20.”

“Why?” the friend asked.

“For the five boxes of Girl Scout Cookies you just bought. They’re in your locker,” Louise recalled McKayla telling the boy.

The family would often take trips to Reading to see the Phillies’ farm team play.

McKayla wasn’t afraid to introduce herself to the players, and some joked they were jealous of the attention that she would give their teammates.

One time, she wandered onto the bus of an opposing team because she wanted to see a former Phillie who had been traded. Another time, a ballplayer’s parents had come to see their son play, but he was in the locker room. McKayla showed no fear, marching up to the locker room, knocking on the door, and making it known that there was someone there to see the player.

“She had a magnetism to her that was just unbelievable,” Louise recalled.

A listener

While she planned to study communications, McKayla had discussed helping others as a career, and possibly studying psychology.

She was always there to listen — to friends, family, even adults. Her sister Kallia, who is four years younger, realizes now that she should have opened up to her sister when she had the chance.

“Whenever she’d see that I was sad or something was wrong, she’d try to get me to open up and talk to her,” she said.

In school, classmates knew they could go to McKayla’s locker for Band-Aids, tissues or a shoulder to lean on.

“They knew if they needed to talk, they needed to vent, she was there for them. She supported everybody,” Lauren said.

Though McKayla’s life ended on Feb. 2, she made a decision which means she’ll live on much longer: she chose to be an organ donor.

It wasn’t a decision she made lightly. While she had donated her hair for charity multiple times, she had reservations about it herself, whether she would actually be dead.

For her Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouts, McKayla planned to sign people up for organ donation, inspired by a relative battling liver cancer.

“Unfortunately she didn’t get to do it, but she did it herself,” Lauren said.

It will also live on through a memorial scholarship given out each year to Tamaqua Area High School seniors. On Aug. 5, her family will hold a basket raffle at West Penn Fire Company to benefit the scholarship.

And Lauren Wall never tires of seeing the stories on social media about the impact that her daughter had on her peers’ lives.

“I take pleasure in seeing how many people’s lives she touched. How many people she affected positively, “ Wall said.