Demi King, a Junior at Fort Zumwalt South High School, is the daughter of Pattie and Dave King. When she was only 4-months-old, her mother had taken her to the doctor numerous times, and they knew something serious must be wrong, so they took her to the emergency room. Demi was immediately put on life-support and her parents were told that she would most likely die that night. However, Demi made it through the morning and was then rushed by ambulance to SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital where she spent a month in a drug-induced coma until they were finally able to diagnose her with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCIDS). A doctor in San Antonio, Texas Children’s Methodist Hospital was doing experimental treatment on SCIDS; luckily, Demi was able to receive the treatment. She underwent chemotherapy, a blood stem cell transplant, and had to live in isolation for months which then became years. By age 3, Demi was starting to thrive, but she was then diagnosed with type one diabetes due to her pancreas shutting down when she was on life-support. Despite many setbacks, Demi is growing beautifully into a teenager and living life to its fullest.
Demi loves to dance and perform, and she even competes on the competition team at Steppin’ Up Dance. She wants to be an actress when she gets older, and her bright personality certainly shines through in all she does, especially when she participates in pagents. She recently won the title Miss Gateway St. Louis Outstanding Teen and will compete for Miss Missouri’s Outstanding Teen in the Miss America system in June. Not only does Demi get to enjoy things like dance and pageants, but she has also taken it upon herself to help make the lives of sick children a little bit better, too. She started her own organization, Demi’s Bears for Hope, in 2009. Her organization donates stuffed animals to the children at Cardinal Glennon every three months. She has donated over 5,000 stuffed animals so far. Her parents and older brother Devin are incredibly proud of Demi and her perseverance through all of her ups and downs. They know that she would do anything to help make a hospitalized child’s day a little brighter because she knows all too well what it is like to spend her days in a hospital bed.
