A college student who was born with spina bifida shocked her parents by rising from her wheelchair at graduation and walking across the stage to claim her diploma.
Gerene TeKippe has relied on a wheelchair to get around since the eighth grade. She surprised her parents on graduation day at St. Ambrose University in Iowa by walking to accept her degree.
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“I think I was just surprised the whole time,” said her mother, Sherri TeKippe. “(My husband) looked at me and said, ‘Did you know she was going to do that?’ and I said, ‘No, I didn’t know that.'”
Gerene TeKippe said her parents raised her to be headstrong.
"If you want to do something, you've got to figure out a way to get it done," she told WQAD.
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