By Scott Brinton
At the skeet range in Yaphank, in Suffolk County, the petite 17-year-old Merokean takes aim with a 20-gauge shotgun. She shattered four dishes recently with her father, Tom.
Emily learned to drive a stick shift while careering down the side of a mountain in a soft-top Suzuki Samurai at a family friend's 98-acre property upstate. She can do 60 push-ups at a time. And last month she won a national cross-country title on Sunken Meadow State Park's tough 3.1-mile course.
And, by the way, Keenan is missing her right arm from the elbow down.
The Calhoun High School senior was born a "congenital amputee." Doctors are unsure why. Some might think of her condition as a disability, but not Keenan.
Emily's mother, Adria, describes her daughter as indomitable, but she worried when Emily was young. "You think, how's she going to learn to tie her shoes?" Adria said. "Then she figures it out on her own."
Emily quickly piped in, "I'm a very do-it-yourself kind of person."
Subhed: Long road to a national title
Keenan does it all, from dance to rock climbing. From third to eighth grade, she played soccer in the Merrick-North Merrick Police Activity League. "I loved soccer," she said. "I liked kicking the ball around. The people on my teams were really nice. It wasn't all about winning. We were just there to have fun."
She joined Calhoun High's cross-country team in ninth grade. A group of her friends had signed up, and she loved to run, so she thought, why not? She competed for a year on the cross-country and track teams, but in 10th and 11th grades, an injury to her left hand sidelined her. The tendons in her wrist were weakened by overuse; she was carrying too many heavy books between classes.
Doctors applied a cast to her hand for 18 months. Her thumb was immobilized, so she had the use of only four fingers. She took notes in class by sandwiching her pen between her index finger and pinkie. "It wasn't very neat, but it got the job done," she said with a laugh.
For those two years, Keenan was prohibited from running cross-country because of her cast. The fear was that she might injure another runner with it during a race.
To make matters worse, the cast failed to heal her strained wrist; scar tissue had built up around her tendons. So doctors decided on potentially risky surgery. Adria said the family had tried to avoid surgery, since Emily has but one hand. They worried that surgery might irreparably damage it.
Faced with no choice, Keenan had the surgery done on July 2 at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City. It was a success -- the scar tissue was removed. She could once again move her wrist comfortably, and she could return to the sport she had fallen in love with in ninth grade, running.
She started practicing on Aug. 27. After that, she hardly missed a workout or meet throughout the fall season. Her 5K times steadily improved, and on Oct. 7 she captured the USA Track & Field national title in the arm amputee category in a meet at Sunken Meadow. She finished the course in a little over 30 minutes, and was awarded a shiny wooden plaque with the title "Best Athlete" engraved on it. It was the end of a very long, painful road for Keenan.
Mike Harrington, a Calhoun High assistant principal, said of Emily, "Honestly, even with the disability, she doesn't let anything get in the way. She really has achieved a lot. From an administrative point of view, we're really proud to have her represent our school. She symbolizes everything we'd want in our students."
June Spruyt, Calhoun's athletic coordinator, had Emily in phys. ed. class last year. "Emily is a great phys. ed. student," Spruyt said. "She's very bright and smart. She understands disability. She knows her limitations, and what she can't do and what she shouldn't be doing. She definitely tries to excel in everything she's capable of doing. Her winning that race just proves her determination."
Subhed: Respect for all
Over the years, most of Keenan's classmates have been kind and understanding, though some have made fun of her because she has one arm. Their words hurt when she was a child, but she also recognized that, as kids, they didn't know better. She wonders why, now that she's in high school, she still gets teased at times. "I think it's sad that when you get to high school you still have to pick on someone else," Keenan said.
She spoke of a recent incident in which she dropped her books in the school hallway, as she does from time to time. A boy started laughing and mocking her, clearly playing to a group of friends beside him. Keenan slowly collected her belongings, stood, walked up to the boy, piled her books into his hands, and politely informed him that he could now carry her books to her next class.
"He took two steps," Keenan said, "and I took my books back because I felt bad that I embarrassed him in front of his friends."
Adria, a part-time church secretary, said, "We've always taught Emily that she's great as she is, as God made her, and to love herself as God loves her."
As a member of Calhoun's Students Against Destructive Decisions club, Emily teaches ninth-graders about the importance of respecting one another's differences. "I choose to respect everyone no matter what they look like or who they are," Keenan said. "It's not something that you can really change." She spreads the same message while teaching Sunday school to second-graders at St. David's Lutheran Church in Massapequa Park.
Subhed: Hope for the future
Keenan hopes to study history at Mount St. Mary College on the Hudson River, just outside New Paltz, next year. She wants to become a social-studies teacher. "I love history -- love, love, love history," she said. Whether she will continue to run winter and spring track for Calhoun will depend on her work schedule at East Bay Farms in Merrick, but she hopes to keep competing.
Tom Keenan, a plant engineering manager at Seviroli Foods in Garden City, said of his daughter, "She's my girl. There's nothing that she can't do. She's a good influence on other people."
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
