Krista Butts

Krista is a rock star. She is one of the hardest working, kindest, most generous people anyone could ever know. In addition to raising her own 3 boys, she also has for the last few years hosted and international exchange student. Krista also works full time as a paraprofessional at our local middle school, always going above and beyond the call of duty. During the pandemic, she made her home a safety bubble for a group of kids so that their parents could also work full time. This means she is hosting a group of 5-7 middle schoolers in addition to her own brood.

Krista is also someone that does not ask for help. Last summer, in the midst of all the chaos, her husband (a police officer) suffered from spontaneous eye issues that could have left him blind. Krista added in being his full time care-taker while trying to manage her own health issues during a time when we still didn’t know if it was safe to go to the grocery store. She tried to stop the meal train people organized for her but ultimately accepted it so that she had some support in managing everything. When a friend was suddenly widowed during that time, she then organized a meal train and a house keeping train for him and his children. I could go on and on with stories of how many families Krista has helped secretly, publicly, by setting up or publicizing meal trains, but Krista would probably be annoyed with me. She would say she hadn’t done anything that anyone else wouldn’t do. But the truth is that Krista is a role model to us all.

One can almost always find Krista smiling, even in the most trying circumstances. Last fall, I happened to drive by a multi-car accident scene (fortunately, no one was injured) and realized that one of the cars involved was Krista’s. She was driving her ‘bonus son’ home from his school and had been rear-ended in the accident. Krista was waiting for the emergency services people to arrive and was checking on all of the other drivers (who happened to be teens from the same school), keeping them calm, calling the school and helping them reassure their parents. At no point did she indicate that she was very shaken up or did she acknowledge that she would not be able to pay the costs to get her own car repaired. I asked the EMTs to check her out anyway as it was clear she needed a break. It was only when she was out of sight of everyone else that she let her tears fall. As I drove her and her ‘bonus son’ home that day, she spoke about how glad she was that no one was seriously hurt.