Photographed by Ralph Granich
The Waggoner Family
The Waggoner Family
Larry and Kay Waggoner had two grown daughters and were thinking about retirement. Then along came their granddaughter Antonea. The Waggoners knew that she needed them, and they adopted their Annie, who is developmentally disabled, at age 3. Larry and Kay knew that they wanted Annie to grow up with siblings, so they began a search for other children like her who needed families. In 2006 they found information about Nicole online at the California Kids Connection state photolisting website, www.CAKidsConnection.com.
Now Annie and Nicole are sisters. Nicole, who was featured in the 2008 Bay Area Heart Gallery, has made great strides since joining their family. While it was once thought that she would never walk or talk, Kay reports that Nicole is walking with a gate trainer, can ride an adaptive tricycle, is learning to talk and is communicating with her new family. They also adopted Brianna last year, who came to them as a medically fragile foster child, also with developmental disabilities. All of the Waggoner children receive excellent special education services through their local school district.
Larry did retire last year…but they plan for their family to continue to grow. They continue to serve as foster parents, and plan to someday adopt two more developmentally disabled children. Kay says, That’s our family! We have a 4 bedroom house and want to fill it up