HUDSONVILLE, Mich. — Leah Rogers was a star athlete at Hudsonville High School. She played volleyball all four years and recently committed to playing at Ohio University.
On May 18, she was honored at a sports banquet for her athleticism. However, she received the biggest honor when her mom Christine appeared.
“I immediately looked at all exits. I was like ’She’s not here is she?” Leah recalled during an interview with FOX 17 on Wednesday. “Then they said ‘Coming in live from Africa I was like ‘Oh my gosh. This is actually happening. And then she came up on the screen and everyone started screaming like ‘Oh my gosh, that’s your mom. And I was like ‘That’s my mom.’”
Christine was in Djibouti, Africa working with the Department of Defense at the time. She’s been there for six months, but a week before the sports banquet the school’s athletic director Casey Glass emailed her about Zooming in for the event and surprising her daughter.
“He’s like so ‘What’s the time difference there?’ and I’m like ‘I’m about 8 hours ahead of you,” Christine laughed while sitting next to her daughter during the interview. “But I didn’t care. He’s like ‘I think we could do this.’ He’s like ‘Would you be interested in doing that?’ He’s like ‘I’d love to Zoom you in. That way you can tell her in person your message.’”
Christine immediately jumped on board. Then it was 2 a.m. Djibouti time on May 18, she zoomed in for the banquet.
“I have the pleasure of videoing in. Casey Glass coauthored to Zoom me in today as a special surprise for Leah,” Christine said during the Zoom call. “I’m going to try to keep it together here.”
The crowd clapped and cheered when they saw Christine on the projector screen. She spoke for two and half minutes to them
“I’ve watched every step of the way, Leah, as you’ve gone through your senior year, more so, and an athlete at Hudsonville High School over the last four years,” Christine continued via Zoom. “As a former basketball player and soccer player I would’ve loved for you to play basketball. But, you found your passion in volleyball. And I’m so grateful I got this opportunity to be there kind of in person to let you know how proud I am of you.”
Christine said she believes surprising Leah was just as sentimental for her as it was for her daughter. She’d been deployed since November 2021 and missed a lot of special moments.
“After a few months I had realized she had gone through a breakup,” Christine said. “Then all of sudden prom was here, and it was just becoming harder and harder to deal with. And then all of sudden sports was coming to an end.”
The sports banquet was a moment she couldn’t miss.
Christine said she’s grateful Glass and the assistant principal Jordan Beel helped to set it up, and thankful the community rallied around her daughter that night and throughout the entire time of her deployment.
“What really got me, even afterwards, is there wasn’t a dry eye in the room,” Christine said. “I had so many calls and messages at 3, 4, 5 in the morning for me from I would say at least 20, 30 parents that said ‘Wow what you said was just so beautiful.”
