5 years ago, 18-year-old Kenli Riney suffered a head-on collision on a Texas highway. Her car spun into a ditch and caught fire.
Behind her, the Argote family was driving along and saw the whole thing. Mike Argote and 3 other men ran toward the flames and pulled Riney from the car.
Mike was burned doing it, but it didn’t stop him from beginning CPR. When he tired, his 14-year-old daughter Ema took over. Eventually, she realized that Riney was gone, and the family gathered around the fallen stranger in prayer, right there on the road.
Riney’s family didn’t have many details about the people who were present for the young woman’s final minutes, until one day her uncle found a Facebook post about the rescue, and learned that the people trying to save their daughter were the Argotes.
Eventually, the two families met, and 5 years later they still consider themselves conjoined thanks to this brief moment of heroism.
That’s not all the intervening half-decade has seen. After Kenli’s death, her mother Marjohn and her father Kevin founded the Kenli Foundation in Kerrville, Texas, where the family had moved to support their daughter’s quest for higher education.
The foundation would honor the strangers who ran towards the fire rather than away from it, and resolved to award scholarships to other students who have shown heroism and compassion, displayed “immense character,” or led a faith-rich life, as Kenli had done.
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“Strangers ran toward the fire,” Marjohn Riney told GNN. “We exist to find more people like them.”
It has since funded 67 heroes and paid $67,000 directly to recipients for college, trade school, and graduate school, paying homage to Kenli who was preparing to embark on a college journey to become an equine surgeon. The first year saw 4 parties apply, while this year has seen 451 already.
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“Ema graduated high school this year, and of course we awarded her the scholarship,” Marjohn told the Hill Country Community Journal. “She’s pursuing a degree at the University of Texas at San Antonio.”
The foundation awards a scholarship to a Tivy High School graduate every year in Kenli’s honor, while this year it also added the Argote Award Scholarship at San Saba High School, in honor of the family that attempted to save her.
Story tip: Marjohn Riney.
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