Everyone has seen a video of a family member in the military coming home to surprise someone, but for sophomore Amie Doak, it wasn’t just another YouTube video. Her sister Sara Franklin surprised her on the day before winter break, after seven months of not seeing her sister they decided to surprise her at the school.
Doak was in Elaine Cates’s English II class during sixth period when Franklin visited. Principal Dr. Jeff Stichler and Cates called Doak up to Cates’s desk pretending to question her about her grades while Franklin and her mother hide in the back. Franklin tapped her on the shoulder and Doak turned around and grew a massive smile at the sight of her sister – whom she didn’t expect to be anywhere near Caney Creek.
In July, Franklin was suppose to graduate from Boot Camp but had a stress fracture in her femur and tibia so it took longer. They had a family day where the family of the graduates could come see them and Doak couldn’t make it. Franklin graduated from Boot Camp in December so when she could head home her first plan was to see Doak.
“I was coming up here and I was excited,” Franklin said. “I was ready to see her and then I saw her, I guess the wall kind of broke.”
Doak, a junior, and her sister are five years apart, but it doesn’t make them any less close. So when Franklin knew she was coming home she contacted to her mother to surprise Doak at school.
No one knew she was coming home except Franklin’s mother and father and her step-father. According to their mother “the girls are very close,” and really miss each other when Franklin is gone.
“It’s crazy and I just miss my family so much but I feel like I’m doing what I need to be doing,” Franklin said. “I guess you would call it sacrifice losing time with your family, but I also feel like.. I did it for a good cause.”
Franklin is currently doing Advanced Individual Training in San Angelo and does not know an exact date of when she will be coming home again.