Prayer for guidance: "Holy Spirit, come dwell in me fully and completely. I know that I cannot change things on my own. I'm open and sensitive to Your promptings and sincerely invite You to get involved in every area of my life. Thank You, Holy Spirit, for comforting me, strengthening me, counseling me, standing by me and helping me with everything that I face and go through. I want you to be my chief Counselor, my main Teacher. I want You to lead me and guide me. I allow You to take charge and remain with me forever. Amen."
WATCH:
A student is asked whether he supports abortion and reveals he is an abortion survivor.
"I'm here because the abortion failed."
Abortion survivors are real. They are living proof that every child targeted by abortion is a unique human being with a life worth protecting.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy GOD, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment
- Mark 12:30
In 1985 I made the USA World Championships Gymnastics Team. I placed 3rd at the Trials, my highest placement to date as a young gymnast.
At Worlds, on my 8th and final event I fell. It was a devastating fall. I missed a release move and tumbled to the ground. My right foot was stuck while my body spun around the knee. I knew it was bad. I screamed, or thought I did. No one came. It felt like forever on the raised platform, no coach, no trainer, no doctor while I writhed.
Eventually my coach realized I wasn't getting back up. They rushed to me. The trainer thought my knee was dislocated and he attempted to push it back in place. It wasn't dislocated though. My femur was broken - we didn't know that yet - and he was pushing bone against bone.
My dad joined me in the ambulance. I remember sobbing -- "What am I going to do now? I don't know how to do anything else. This is all I want to do."
He cried too. We assumed my career was over. He said: "You can do anything you want to do. You're smart and you can be anything you want to be. You're just getting started." He was right in so many ways.
But all I wanted then was to be a gymnast.
I was taken to the nearest hospital and rushed into surgery. It was a French speaking hospital and we didn't fully understand what anyone was telling us.
When I came out of surgery a doctor who spoke English told us "It was a broken femur. Not her knee." We cheered. We were all so happy. My coaches, my parents, me. Bones often heal better than joints.
I left Canada on crutches with a full leg cast. When I got home to Pennsylvania, my doctor changed the cast to a lighter one, with a hinge at the knee. And I went back to the gym. I started training right away.
8 months later, in June 1986, I walked into the arena in Indianapolis for USA Championships. No one thought I'd be there. Everyone thought I was done. Forever.
I knew I wasn't done. Not yet.
I won. I became the National Champion less than a year after breaking my femur on the world's stage.
Never give up. Never.
She was too late to play Taps for her great-grandfather. So she made sure 1,500 other families wouldn’t have to settle for a recording.
Katie Prior was 10 when her great-grandfather, a World War II veteran, entered hospice. She had just begun learning trumpet. Her family spoke about how meaningful it would be if she could play “Taps” at his funeral—the simple, haunting 24-note bugle call that has honored fallen service members since the Civil War.
She practiced with urgency.
She didn’t make it in time.
When he passed, a recording of Taps was played instead. It was respectful. It was traditional. But it wasn’t live. And to Katie, it felt like something sacred had been missing.
Years later, she discovered a painful reality: more than 1,500 veterans die each day in the United States, and there are not enough military buglers to perform live at every funeral. Many families, like hers, must rely on a digital recording.
Katie decided that wasn’t good enough.
At 15, she founded the Youth Trumpet & Taps Corps as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award project. Her goal was simple but powerful: recruit and train young trumpet players across the country to volunteer at veterans’ funerals—free of charge—so families could hear Taps performed live.
But Katie didn’t stop at good intentions. She created a structured training program, offering workshops and online instruction. Volunteers learned not just the music, but the meaning behind it—military funeral protocol, posture, timing, respect. Because those two minutes at a graveside are not just about sound. They are about dignity.
What began as one girl’s heartbreak became a national movement.
The Youth Trumpet & Taps Corps has grown to include over a hundred young musicians across dozens of states. Teenagers—some barely old enough to drive—stand quietly in cemeteries, lift their trumpets, and play for veterans they’ve never met.
Katie has performed at many funerals herself. Each time, she carries her great-grandfather with her. In every final note, she honors him too.
That’s what makes her story extraordinary.
She couldn’t change the past. She couldn’t replay that funeral. But she could make sure other families wouldn’t feel that same regret.
Twenty-four notes.
Two minutes of music.
A lifetime of meaning.
Katie Prior turned a missed moment into a mission. And because she did, thousands more veterans are being honored not by a speaker—but by a living, breathing young musician offering a final salute.
She was too late for one.
But right on time for so many others.