All hail the Casa Grande Queen

Danielle Kainz, Casa Grande High School’s 2014 Homecoming Queen, is very special and her coronation says volumes about her own bubbly personality and the acceptance of the Casa student body.

Danielle has Down syndrome and is a special needs student at Casa Grande. Shy around strangers, she opens up to her friends - and there are a lot of friends.

To say she is proud to be this year’s queen would be the Mt. Everest of understatements. “She was so excited she wanted to sleep with her crown,” said her mother Teri Kainz.

Danielle speaks slowly and thoughtfully, especially in an interview situation, but when she smiles, her face lights up in a way that illuminates an entire room. One of the surest ways to turn on that smile is to have her talk about her friends - “Dame, Emily, Aylssa, Andy, Morgan...,” she mentions, just getting started. Many of her closest friends have been her friends since kindergarten.

And, then there are the hundreds of Casa Grande students who voted her Homecoming Queen, and the many who hugged her after her win. All are her friends.

“It really shows the compassion and acceptance of the students,” said Teri. “It shows they accept and love each other for all our differences.”

Danielle is one out of every 691 babies born in the United States with Down syndrome, which causes individuals to have low muscle tone, small stature and other physical characteristics, along with differing degrees of intellectual disabilities.

Rather than have Danielle educated in a special school, her parents, Chuck and Teri, chose to have her attend public schools, and she has progressed from Sonoma Mountain Elementary School to Kenilworth Junior High School and is now a senior at Casa Grande.

It is a decision neither Danielle nor her parents have ever regretted. “I am very pleased with the public schools,” said Teri. “It is important that Danielle be around everyone instead of being in a special needs school. The biggest thing is how well she has been accepted.”

Danielle was nominated as a queen candidate by Casa Grande’s Best Buddies Club, a group that pairs students with their peers from the special needs program.

It was her second nomination. Last year she was thrilled to be nominated. This year she was even more thrilled to be crowned queen.

Asked what was the best part of the experience, she flashed her smile and said, “I won.”

She was also excited to reign over the Homecoming dance where she enjoyed, “All the dance moves.”

Her favorite football team is naturally “the Gauchos,” especially “when they make a first down.”

“Danielle teaches us all that everybody is different, but we are all more alike than we are different.”