By GARY REAVES / WFAA-TV
FORT WORTH — Rikki Buckalew is the new grand champion of a contest she didn’t think she had a chance to win.

In 10 years of showing steers, Rikki has never come close to winning at the Fort Worth stock show. This year, one of her cows died and another came up lame, leaving only the big one she calls her baby.

She gave him a name he could live up to: War Admiral.

But she had a battle of her own to fight first — against a rare brain disease. A high school senior in Graham, about 85 miles northwest of Fort Worth, she was working to be in the top 10 percent of her class, hoping for a scholarship to Texas A&M University. But then, the headaches started.

"It was scary," recalled her mom, Leaann Buckalew. "It was extremely scary not knowing what was going on, why she was in so much pain."

After a week at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Rikki said she was diagnosed with a rare disease.

"It’s where my brain thinks I have a tumor, so it makes a bunch of spinal fluid," she said.

Rikki missed so much school, she almost failed. She was accepted at TCU; she just couldn't afford it. And as for the Stock Show, her expectations were low. "Seventh place, maybe," she said.

So as Rikki led War Admiral into the show ring, she wasn't exactly confident.

"I was like, 'Oh, he's not picking mine. These other steers are better, I'm sure.'"

But she was wrong. To read the rest of this article, click here.