No matter how old you are or where you grew up, everyone remembers how nervous they were in high school when they looked at the wall.

You know, that wall where the coach posts who made the basketball team, the theatre director reveals who’ll play Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, or the band director unveils the drum line. For all the electronic advancements in our society, we’re all connected by a piece of paper and Scotch tape. 

Shannon Burris can now attest that the only anxiety that surpasses looking at the wall as a high schooler is looking at the wall on behalf of your freshman daughter. 

Shannon had been preparing Seana for Cypress Ranch High School’s swim tryout since Seana was in sixth grade. Cy Ranch coach Richard Carnicle ran a neighborhood summer swim team called Town Lake Wake, and Seana had been one of the hardest-working swimmers for years, even practicing with her own private coach. 

But she had a sinking suspicion all those efforts had come up short. Cy Ranch’s swim team had a four-day tryout, and Seana had come home after the third practice, saying Coach Carnicle told her she didn’t have to come back tomorrow. Shannon reached out to Carnicle to make sure Seana hadn’t made a mistake. Nope, Clarnicle said, she’d done everything they’d asked. Now, Shannon had to toss and turn all night, wondering if it had been enough. 

Deep down, Shannon would’ve understood if Seana’s Down syndrome kept her off the team. As a parent, she balances the competing wishes of not wanting people to put a label on her daughter, but also not giving her spots she doesn’t deserve. Frankly, her hopes didn’t rise until she scanned the paper and read Seana’s number again and again until the happy tears in her eyes blurred it out. 

“I was probably more surprised than anyone to see her name up there,” Shannon said. 

Seana had spent her life surprising people. Becoming the first swimmer with Down syndrome at Cy Ranch High School is just the top line of one of the state’s most stacked resumes. Last summer, Seana was selected to represent Team Texas at the 2026 Special Olympics. She has donated her hair five times to Sky High for Kids, an organization that fights pediatric cancer. Over 12 years, people’s donations to cut her ponytails have totaled $85,000. She is also an avid outdoorswoman, serving on the junior committee of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and hunting with organizations such as Disabled Outdoorsmen. In her free time, or what little she has of it, she runs the flag across the field for Cy Ranch football games as part of the “Rowdies” student spirit organization.

“It’s kind of busy a lot,” Seana said, in the understatement of the year. 

While the schedule demands time management and a never-ending supply of energy, the most important quality is the bravery to put yourself out there. And for that, Shannon looks up to her daughter every day. Most kids find any excuse they can to get out of school. Seana will have a doctor’s appointment that ends at 1:30 p.m. and will plead with her mother to take her back to school just to take the bus ride home. When Shannon took Seana out of school for two days to tour the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, Seana kept asking to go back to Cy Ranch.

“It takes courage,” Shannon said. “She knows she has Down syndrome. She knows it makes her a little different. But something I always tell her is, ‘God creates everybody differently.’”

The Burris family has not spent time asking themselves why God made Seana this way. But they’re provided with hints whenever she competes for Cy Ranch. This year, Coach Carnicle put her in the 100-meter butterfly, widely considered one of the most difficult races because of the strength and endurance required. As Seana made the turn on the final lap, Carnicle noticed every eye in the natatorium was on her lane. Hopefully, when they left that afternoon, they applied Seana’s courage to their everyday lives. 

“One of the coolest parts of watching this over the past four years, I feel like she gets the biggest applause when she finishes races,” Coach Carnicle said. “I feel like everyone is paying attention when she’s in the water because what she’s doing is incredible.”

Now, the entire Cy Ranch community is experiencing what Shannon has had a front-row seat to all along. Every time “The Painter” by Cody Johnson comes on the radio, her mind drifts to Seana. Her life was black and white, but Seana is the painter who adds all the color. She is everyone’s cheerleader. Whenever the two do a triathlon together, Seana encourages every person they walk past. Her first time donating hair to Sky High for Kids, a donor gave $12,500 to cut her ponytail because they were so inspired that this child with Down syndrome was finding out what she could do for other kids instead of asking what other kids could do for her.  

“I think she’s kind of awesome,” Shannon said. “I’m going to keep her.”

Except Shannon only has a little longer before Seana leaves for college. The Special Olympics is almost a trial run of independence for the mother as much as for the daughter. Shannon already has the dates etched into her brain, preparing for the long days without her daughter by her side: drop Seana off on June 19, watch her compete in the Individual Medley, 100-meter breaststroke, and 50m breaststroke on these days, then get her back on June 27. She’s dreading these eight days, much less the eight months of a college school year. 

“She won’t let me live in the dorm with her, so I don’t know what I’d do if she went to Arkansas (for example),” Shannon said. “I want her to spread her wings and do her thing and live her best life. I shouldn’t let my fears interfere with that. I can work at a McDonald’s in Arkansas.”

As much as she wants to keep Seana all to herself, Shannon knows that by letting Seana spread her wings, she’ll also spread her message on wider platforms at the college level. It’s time for her to paint other lives with color. 

“She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Shannon said. “She makes me want to be a better person.”

And more people need to hear that message.