A negative attitude "won't get you anywhere"

Chloe Beardsley | Meadowdale High School

It was the fire that did it.

Life for Chloe Beardsley already was tougher than most teens ever face. Her mom had fled the family, terminal cancer was ravaging her dad, and she had decided to quit all of her high-school sports — basketball, track, softball, volleyball and swimming — to get a job and play a stronger role in her little brothers' lives.

Then they all nearly died in an early-morning October 2004 blaze that destroyed their Edmonds house and killed several pets. Beardsley considers their survival miraculous; they all escaped through a second-story window.

A TV news story on the family's plight triggered a generous community response, renewing Beardsley's spirit and awakening a latent desire to pursue a broadcast-journalism career. She calls it a domino effect; she wants to help others in similar need.

"It changed me. I'm a different person now than I was back then," said Beardsley, 18. "It made me realize that even though I lost everything, I was lucky to have it the first place. And once it was lost, there were people there that picked me up."

Beardsley has been a senior-class senator at Meadowdale High School, with early-morning responsibilities, so her weekdays have begun at 6:45 a.m. She took an oversize course load, with classes ending around 3 p.m. at Edmonds-Woodway High, where she's been studying broadcast journalism.

Then she's had a chance to return home, to deal with household needs, before heading out to three part-time jobs at Alderwood mall and a downtown Edmonds shop. She often hasn't gotten home until well after 10 p.m., she said.

"It's enough to drive you totally insane," she said. "But what's kept me from falling apart is my motivation to keep my family strong."

Beardsley's father, 61, is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for bone cancer, which spread from his prostate.

"He was supposed to go a while ago," she said. "He told me the other day what keeps him going is us kids."

Beardsley plans to take calculus during the summer at Edmonds Community College, then enroll at the University of Washington. She expects to transfer after two years to Washington State University for its broadcast-journalism program.

WSU offered more scholarship and loan help — $18,000 versus $10,000 from the UW — but for now she wants to stay close to her father and brothers, 10 and 14.

"Thinking about bad things won't get you anywhere," she said. "You'll always have obstacles. But if people overcome them with a good attitude, you're off to a positive start."

Diane Brooks: 425-745-7802 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com