5 Years after Texas crash, families bonded by tragedy turn loss into 67 scholarships

Texas: Five 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 saw the crash. Mike Argote and three other men ran toward the flames and pulled Riney from the car.

Mike was burned doing it, but began CPR. When he tired, his 14-year-old daughter Ema took over. Eventually, she realized Riney was gone, and the family gathered around the stranger in prayer on the roadside.

Riney’s family had few details about those present in her final minutes, until her uncle found a Facebook post about the rescue and identified the Argotes. The two families eventually met and five years later still consider themselves conjoined by that brief moment of heroism.

After Kenli’s death, her mother Marjohn and father Kevin founded the Kenli Foundation in Kerrville, where the family had moved to support their daughter’s quest to become an equine surgeon.

The foundation honours strangers who ran toward the fire and awards scholarships to students who have shown heroism and compassion, displayed “immense character,” or led a faith-rich life.”Strangers ran toward the fire. We exist to find more people like them,” Marjohn Riney told Good News Network.

Since then, it has funded 67 heroes and paid $67,000 directly to recipients for college, trade school and graduate school. The first year saw 4 applicants; this year has seen 451.

The foundation awards a scholarship to a Tivy High School graduate every year in Kenli’s honor, and this year added the Argote Award Scholarship at San Saba High School, in honor of the family that attempted to save her.

“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.”