Page 6 - Flathead Beacon // 12.31.14

6 | DECEMBER 31, 2014 NEWS
FLATHEADBEACON.COM
Tanya Jernigan hugs her mother Tara Johns at Glacier Park International Airport. Johns received a surprise flight to Northwest Montana to visit her daughter for Christmas.
DILLON TABISH | FLATHEAD BEACON
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Mother, Daughter Reunite for Christmas
Tanya Jernigan welcomes mother to Montana after winning Home for the Holidays contest
By DILLON TABISH of the Beacon
Tanya Jernigan had not spent Christ- mas with her mother in eight years. That changed this holiday season.
Two days before Christmas, Jernigan hugged her mother Tana Johns at Glacier Park International Airport as the pair re- united for the first time in years.
They were the winning recipients of the Flathead Beacon’s Home for the Hol- idays contest, which flies home a fam- ily member every Christmas. The annual holiday contest, which seeks applicants through written essays, was co-sponsored
by the Beacon and Flathead Travel, as well as other area retailers. Along with the grand prize flight, another prize — $500 in cash — was awarded to Heidi Valentine.
Jernigan, who has lived in Montana the past eight years, and her husband hoped to bring Johns to Montana from outside Nashville, Tennessee, where Johns lives alone.
“It’s hard to spend Christmas with- out family,” Jernigan said. “I just really wanted her to spend the holidays with us. We don’t have any family here and it’s so lonely during the holiday.”
Writing her essay was emotional, Jernigan said, as she reflected on how long it had been since her and her mother had been together.
“It was just a weird feeling. I just had tears in my eyes,” she said.
For Johns, it was an emotional — and nerve-wracking — sudden surprise. She
found out only five days before Christmas and scrambled to find someone to watch her dog. She also prepared for her first flight in years.
“When she told me, I couldn’t believe it. I got so emotional,” Johns said. “But it had been so many years since I’ve flown, probably 15-16 years.”
She left her home outside Nashville just past 3 a.m. and began her journey across the country. The stressful scruti- ny of passing through bag checks and se- curity lines was an unpleasant part, and hustling between gates was a challenge at times. But sitting by the window, gap- ing out at Flathead Lake and visiting her daughter for two weeks around Christ- mas was an experience unlike any other.
“I’m on a fixed income, so there’s no way I could ever come up here,” she said. “This was just a Christmas miracle.”
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