'Living a Life of Love': Players support teammate, raise money to fight cancer

By Zach Spicer
First Posted: September 18, 2012 - 11:54 pm
Last Updated: September 19, 2012 - 12:53 am

We also have more stories about:
(click the phrases to see a list)

Photos:

Tribune photo by Aaron Piper/ Immanuel Lutheran School's volleyball players, from fifth grade to eighth grade, stand in the shape of a ribbon while making the heart sign before the start of the recent serve-a-thon fundraiser.

Tribune photo by Aaron Piper/ Immanuel Lutheran School eighth-grader Courtney Carpenter serves the ball during the volleyball team's recent serve-a-thon fundraiser.

Being an only child, it was difficult for 14-year-old Courtney Carpenter to lose her father, Scott.

After battling with pancreatic cancer for about a year, Scott Carpenter died Sept. 2 at the age of 45.

“I was really close with my dad,” said Courtney, an eighth-grader at Immanuel Lutheran School in Seymour. “He was my best friend.”

Carpenter said one of her friends lost a grandfather to cancer, but she had never had it hit that close to home.

“I was really shocked when I heard it,” she said. “He was calm when he told me, and he didn’t want me to worry about him. I tried to make it look like I didn’t worry about it, and I just kept my school grades up and helped around the house.”

Through it all, Carpenter said she was fortunate to have volleyball and her teammates to keep her going.

“It helped me get closer to my friends. They were there for me,” Carpenter said. “We are all really close; we’re all like sisters, and we can tell each other everything.”

This story appears in the print edition of The Tribune. Subscribers can read the entire story online by signing in here or in our e-Edition by clicking here.