More Than A Queen

Camry Weinheimer, the 125th Gillespie County Fair Queen from 2013, will always be remembered for her love for Christ, her passion for kids and her giving spirit. — Standard-Radio Post file photo

Family of Camry Weinheimer remembers her compassion, spirituality.

By Samuel Sutton

Standard-Radio Post editor

Camry Weinheimer will always be remembered for her giving spirit.

Camry, the 125th Gillespie County Fair Queen in 2013, died of cancer at the age of 25 on May 1, 2022. But even through the grueling months of treatments, her family said she was always full of life.

Caring spirit

“She always had a smile on her face,” said her father, Len Weinheimer. “She had a dry sense of humor.”

A humorous moment that stood out to them was a time when she told a farrier on their ranch that he put on a horseshoe wrong.

“He had been shoeing horses for a while and we were good friends with him, too,” said her sister, Lexus Haecker. “She was casually walking by and said, ‘You put that shoe on backwards.’”

She recalled the man picked up the foot in confusion, and Camry responded with, “Made you look.”

“That’s the kind dry sense of humor she had,” Haecker said.

Throughout life, the family remembers she always loved kids. In fact, she got her degree in interdisciplinary studies with a special education certification from Angelo State University to fulfill her dream of being a kindergarten teacher.

She worked for two years teaching special education and American Literature at San Angelo Central High School and spent some time as a kindergarten teacher in Comfort in 2020.

“You could tell she cared, but she also enjoyed the childhood humor,” Haecker said. “She would be the person a child would run up to either because they scraped their knee or because she was giggling about something funny they did.”

She also loved playing softball, competing with Fredericksburg High School for all four years and playing one year for the ASU Rams team.

“She loved to play, but college sports were too intense and time consuming for Camry,” Len said. “She wanted to focus more on her studies. She loved to play the game for fun, but decided education was more important.”

Softball and her love for kids were parts of what made her who she was, but the most important part of her life was her relationship with God.

Camry’s family said her Christian spirit would often intermingle with her love for kids. As an example, when her second cousin, Libby Klein, was nominated for homecoming queen at Fredericksburg High School, Camry wanted to make sure she got it.

“Libby has Down syndrome,” said her mother, Wanda Franz. “Camry went out and campaigned all week for Libby, and she won.”

Wanda remembers how excited Camry was when Libby was announced as queen.

“I think she was more excited than she would’ve been if she had won it herself,” Wanda said.

Fair Queen

Her caring spirit also came out when she became fair queen, a role she had won in 2013.

Her family said the decision to run for the court might have come from a little peer pressure since her friend, Mackenzie Spisak Collapy, also ran, but the role suited Camry.

“She was the girly-girl of the girls,” Wanda said. “She loved glamour and makeup. She was definitely not the tomboy girl.”

During her time as queen, her main goal was to be a role model for younger girls.

“She always wanted young girls to look up to her as someone that they would want to be,” Wanda said.

She enjoyed all the events, but most of all, she wanted to meet with the little girls after the parade or during the fair.

“She would go take the pictures with young girls because she wanted that image of them looking up to her as a role model,” Wanda said.

Battling Cancer

Camry moved back to Fredericksburg from San Angelo in June of 2020 for a kindergarten job in Comfort. Her fiancé, Christopher Skokan, moved to Fredericksburg after she was diagnosed. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do but did know he wanted to be with the woman he had shared life with since 2015.

“They enjoyed each other in whatever they did,” Wanda said. “Two weeks into being home, Camry began having stomach aches and ended up in the emergency room in July.”

“We later found out there was a tumor in her uterus,” her sister, Jetta Eckhardt, recalled. “She was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma. By the time they found it, it had taken up 90% of her bone marrow.”

Through her 21 months of treatment, she kept that smile and strong spirit.

“She was in a lot of pain, but she didn’t want anyone to know,” Len said. “She lost her hair to chemo and said, ‘I always wanted to shave my head anyway.’”

During her 21-month treatment, Wanda remembers the strong bond between Camry and Chris, who she employed at Hill Country Propane to help her not only with the business, but also with Camry’s health.

“He was my righthand man,” Wanda said. “If I couldn’t stay the day with her, he would. He was amazing at scheduling her medicine and would often wake up at 1 a.m. to give her medicine if she needed it. Whatever he had to do to take care of her, he would do it.”

The cancer also didn’t change her giving heart. Wanda recalls a time where it came out during one of their final trips to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

She told her mother she wanted to go to IKEA because she had never been. Wanda thought it was an interesting request but granted it. On the way there, they encountered a homeless man on the side of the road.

“She said, ‘Mom, there’s a ChickFil-A over there. I want Chick-Fil-A, and can we also get a meal for him?’” Wanda recalled.

When they brought the meal back to the man, he saw she was bald and decided to bless her.

“It kind of makes you wonder, was he really a homeless man or was he someone sent from above?” she said.

While Camry did not survive the cancer, her family is confident she’s in a better place.

“She would always say everything was going to be OK, and God was taking care of us,” Wanda said. “I think we took it as she was going to be healed. We prayed for a miracle for Camry’s healing, but we realize now the miracle was in front of us the entire time. The miracle was her.”