Before the bidding began at the Kendall County Junior Livestock auction, Madeline Barber gave the auctioneer a handwritten note.
“I would like to give back to the people who saved my life,” she wrote, “and give other children the chance to live and do what they want.”
It said she was donating 100 percent of her earnings from the pigs she’d raised to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, where she was treated for brain cancer five years ago.
After the broker read the note, an estimated crowd of more than 600 people cheered and applauded the teen, nicknamed Maddie. Standing on stage at the Kendall County Youth Agriculture & Equestrian Center in Boerne, her eyes widened as multiple bid cards rose in the air for her second-place hog.