{"id":21841,"date":"2026-01-14T00:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/21841\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T00:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:49:07","slug":"heartfelt-memorial-hoover-students-remember-classmate-lost-in-kenya-crash-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/21841\/","title":{"rendered":"Heartfelt memorial: Hoover students remember classmate lost in Kenya crash | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WATERLOO, Iowa \u2014 Students and staff at Hoover Middle School gathered for an emotional day as they remembered one of their own with a special balloon launch. Emmanuel De Leon, an eighth-grade student, tragically died in a crash while vacationing in Kenya last month.<\/p>\n<p>His brother, Kairo Winkelpleck, a first grader at Royal Legacy Christian Academy, also died in the crash. Their sister, a junior at West High School, remains hospitalized in Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>School leaders wanted to honor Emmanuel in a memorable way for the students. Hoover Middle School Principal Tom Harskamp said, &#8220;He was a leader. Very calm and caring. People looked up to him and he was involved in a lot and impacted a lot of different people. The ripple effect of the impact of Emmanuel De Leon will go a long ways.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A GoFundMe for the family has raised more than $48,000 toward their $50,000 goal. Donations can still be made by clicking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/support-for-the-deleons-christopher-family\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATERLOO, Iowa \u2014 Students and staff at Hoover Middle School gathered for an emotional day as they remembered&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[13589,6464,8573,13590,9272,9502,80,13588,9268,9094,9093,13592,13591],"class_list":{"0":"post-21841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-baloon-launch","9":"tag-brother","10":"tag-car-crash","11":"tag-emmanuel-deleon","12":"tag-hoover-middle-school","13":"tag-iowa","14":"tag-kenya","15":"tag-memorial","16":"tag-sister","17":"tag-students","18":"tag-waterloo","19":"tag-waterloo-community-school-district","20":"tag-west-high-school"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}