West Mecklenburg senior will turn tragedy into triumph. Here’s what’s driving her success
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Reagan McElhaney often flips through the pages of the yearbook she keeps close — laughing at some of the messages friends penned.
She also has the cap and gown her father wore for his graduation from West Mecklenburg High School in 2000.
“The cap and gown are much bigger than me,” the 18-year-old said, laughing. “I keep those things with me because he’s not here. Time goes by a lot faster than you think.”
She is one of 250 West Mecklenburg High seniors graduating Saturday at Bojangles Coliseum. There are 9,352 students graduating district-wide. But her path to a diploma is unique.
She was 13 when her father, Brandon, died of cardiac arrest at 36. She nearly failed out of high school during the COVID pandemic, and she attended three different Charlotte high schools.
“It’s so weird how life is full circle, and I’m here,” Reagan McElhaney said, sitting in the media center at West Mecklenburg High. “My dad talked about West Meck a lot. A lot of people were telling me you need to go to this program and that program. I feel like I was running away from where I was supposed to be in the first place.”
Father’s death
The McElhaneys, two parents and their three girls, moved to Charlotte from Shelby when Reagan, their oldest daughter, was in the eighth grade. Brandon McElhaney worked in accounting and served as pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church in Shelby and House of Truth Worship Center in Charlotte.
A few months after the family moved, Brandon McElhaney died Sept. 1, 2018.
“My dad was a relatively healthy person,” Reagan McElhaney said. “My dad was also stressed. It plays a role in the way I am now because that showed me that stress can kill you.”
The night he died, Brandon McElhaney complained that he couldn’t breathe. Reagan McElhaney was downstairs in her grandparents’ house — where the family was living — when her mom came into her room asking for her inhaler. Both father and daughter had asthma. But the inhaler wasn’t helping his breathing.
“They called for the (paramedics). I didn’t think anything was going to happen,” Reagan McElhaney said. “The coroner came, which I didn’t even know what that was at the time. I wanted to go upstairs and see him, but they were like ‘No, we don’t want you to see him in that state.’ I was like what state? Then they told me.”
It’s still shocking for her.
“I never expected anything like that to happen in my life,” she said. “I thought I would be 50 or 60 years old before I would have to think about my parents being gone.”
From North to West Mecklenburg
Reagan McElhaney’s high school career began at North Mecklenburg, where she struggled. After her father’s death, she couldn’t focus and procrastinated studying. While she did well on assignments, she bombed tests, she says.
Then COVID hit.
“I didn’t know how to handle it,” she said. “Some people did really well (learning remotely.) I just had to be in-person. I would sleep all day long. My teacher called and said you are not going to get promoted. You’re failing everything.”
It was the wake-up call she needed. After a short stint attending West Charlotte High, she enrolled in West Mecklenburg High. And she signed on for everything from clubs to sports.
“I never wanted to be in that position again,” McElhaney said. “I wanted to do everything.”
But Reagan McElhaney’s impulse to over-involve herself in school was just a way to avoid thinking about her dad’s death, she says.
“I’m not going to lie. I tried my best not to think about my dad,” she said. “I tried to overwhelm myself with things so I didn’t have to think about it. I started to go to therapy but I would find ways not to go. I have a great home life. My mom talks about him a lot. It’s overwhelming.”
The thoughts bring her to tears.
“I’m not scared of death,” she said. “But I always envisioned him doing things with us. I miss having that other person there. I never in my life imagined my family like this, and saying, ‘Oh, I had a dad.’”
“A shining example”
McElhaney found community at West Mecklenburg High and a student body where she became a leader.
“Reagan is an excellent young woman with the most positive outlook you will find,” Principal Casimir Bundrick said. “A true, lemon to lemonade attitude. She can and will complete, persevere through, succeed with and achieve anything and everything she sets her sights on. And, has the ability to make others great as well.”
She has been involved in Road to Hire, a nonprofit that serves students “whose opportunities continue to be limited by financial barriers and systemic racism” and helps them with careers in STEM, and Girls Tribe, a Charlotte graphic tees and tank shop that empowers women.
McElhaney also is a part of West Mecklenburg High’s student government and serves as president. Her advice to her peers: whatever you’re going to do, stick with it.
“My dad didn’t finish college, and I think that was something that weighed on him,” she said. “I love my dad. But there were ventures that he would start and wouldn’t finish. Whatever I’m doing in school and life, I want to stick to it and finish it.”
McElhaney will attend the University of North Carolina-Greensboro in the fall and study international business.
“I’m looking forward to being on my own,” she said “I helped build a community here, I hope to do the same there. I’m looking forward to what’s next.”
2023 CMS graduation schedule
The following schools already held graduations: Cato Middle College High, Merancas Middle College High, Harper Middle College High, Levine Middle College High, Charlotte Teachers Early College, Charlotte Engineering Early College and Metro School.
Here’s the schedule of graduations still to come:
Saturday, June 10 | Bojangles Coliseum
8:30 a.m. | Mallard Creek High School
Noon | Independence High School
3:30 p.m. | Philip O. Berry Academy of Technology
7 p.m. | West Mecklenburg High School
Saturday, June 10 | UNC Charlotte Halton Arena
12:30 p.m. | Julius L. Chambers High School
4:30 p.m. | Hopewell High School
8 p.m. | North Mecklenburg High School
Monday, June 12 | Bojangles Coliseum
8:30 a.m. | David W. Butler High School
Noon | Harding University High School
3:30 p.m. | East Mecklenburg High School
7 p.m. | Garinger High School
Monday, June 12 | Spectrum Center
4 p.m. | Ardrey Kell High School
7:30 p.m. | Myers Park High School
Tuesday, June 13 | Bojangles Coliseum
8:30 a.m. | West Charlotte High School
Noon | Rocky River High School
3:30 p.m. | Olympic High School
Tuesday, June 13 | Ovens Auditorium
8 a.m. | Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences
11:30 a.m. | Performance Learning Center
3 p.m. | Cochrane Collegiate Academy
Wednesday, June 14 | Bojangles Coliseum Center
12:30 p.m. | Providence High School
4 p.m. | William A. Hough High School
7:30 p.m. | South Mecklenburg High School
Wednesday, June 14 | Ovens Auditorium
8 a.m. | John Taylor Williams Secondary Montessori
11:30 a.m. | Charlotte-Mecklenburg Virtual High School/Charlotte-Mecklenburg Academy
3 p.m. | Northwest School of the Arts
