Softball Rivals Discover They’re Sisters

Samantha Rensvold, 19, had always known she was adopted and that she had a younger biological sister somewhere. But the adoption was closed, and she didn’t know where to find her. Then, during a softball tournament last August, a teammate pointed out a player on the opposing team who looked just like her.

After the game, Samantha told her mom, and together they checked the tournament roster. The girl’s name was Kyann. “My mom knew that that’s what my birth mom named her,” Samantha said, adding that her mother responded, “That has to be your sister. That’s not a coincidence.”

The next time they saw each other at a game, Samantha’s mom approached Kyann Dean’s family. The details strongly supported what they already suspected: Both girls’ biological mothers had the same name, and the girls were born at the same hospital. The two had grown up roughly 400 miles apart, adopted by different families in Montana, without knowing where the other lived.

“It’s like we didn’t know what to feel because you’ve waited your whole lives for this moment,” Samantha said. “But now it’s so nice to be able to put a face to her and to meet her, hang out with her. It doesn’t leave any doubt or wonder in my mind.”

Teen Runs Marathon after Paralysis

Wyatt Anderson, a 17-year-old senior at Saint Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky, crossed the finish line at the Chicago Marathon last week in 3 hours, 56 minutes, and 28 seconds, with his brother by his side. Less than a year ago, he was paralyzed from the neck down.

Last November, Wyatt suffered a spinal cord injury during a basketball game. He underwent spinal fusion surgery and months of rehabilitation, slowly regaining the ability to walk, then run. Fewer than five months after the injury, he completed the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon in under two hours. At the Chicago Marathon, he ran the full 26.2 miles.

The family launched a fundraising campaign called “Run Wyatt Run” to benefit the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which supports spinal cord injury research. Wyatt and his brother raised more than $22,000.

“I wanted to walk or run a marathon within a year,” Wyatt said. 

Girl, 12, Becomes Qantas Crew Member

Trisha’s family flies every year, and with each trip her interest in the flight crew grew. She became fascinated by how they worked. All she wanted was to try it herself.

On Sept. 15, the 12-year-old from Victoria, Australia, got her wish. Through Make-A-Wish Australia, Trisha trained in emergency procedures at the Qantas training center, earned her wings, then boarded Flight QF735 from Sydney to Adelaide in a full crew uniform to serve passengers alongside her assigned buddy, flight attendant Ashlee Fischer.

What made the day extraordinary is what came before it. Trisha was diagnosed with serious kidney problems at age 4 and later developed end-stage kidney failure. Her mother donated a kidney to her in 2024. Make-A-Wish Australia, which has fulfilled more than 7,000 wishes since 1985, granted hers to help make her dream a reality.

Her mother, Michelle, watched it all unfold. She said seeing Trisha train at the Qantas facility and work the flight in her uniform was amazing, adding, “Everyone has made her day.”

The following stories are featured exclusively on The Feel Good Flyover Podcast. Clicking the link will take you directly there:

➤ New studies suggest regular face-to-face connection could be linked to a longer and happier life. (Listen Now)

➤ An Arizona teen gave a stranger the shoes off his feet, not knowing he was being filmed. (Hear Story)

➤ Children in a remote Chinese village spent generations climbing a cliff to reach school, until a glass elevator changed their commute. (Hear Details)

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➤ Skydivers preparing for a jump near a Wisconsin airport watched a small plane go down in a cornfield, then parachuted to the crash site to help. One, a former paramedic, treated an injured passenger until EMS arrived, and all four people aboard survived. (More)

➤ One fisherman in Thailand revived a drowning puppy with 40 seconds of CPR after pulling it from a lake. Once back on its feet, the pup shook off the water and trotted over to greet the dog whose owner helped spot it. (See Photos)

➤ Surprise scheduling put a 22-year-old Dutch pilot in the cockpit beside her father, flying as his co-pilot for the first time, while her mother worked the same flight as one of its attendants. Fittingly, her parents first met while working on a flight together. (See Photos)

➤ With 306 years of life between them, three World War II veterans celebrated their 101st, 102nd, and 103rd birthdays together in Virginia, where the community turned out to honor their service. (More)

➤ Scrolling through an interactive website takes you room by room through a modern apartment, pairing everyday objects like lamps, fridges, and faucets with the awestruck words of people who saw them for the first time. (See Website)

➤ Crews from the Coast Guard and marine rescue groups spent hours spraying water on a juvenile humpback whale stranded on a sandbar off New York’s Fire Island, cheering as the rising tide carried it back to open water. (Watch Video)

Stanford professor Karl Deisseroth shares an emotional moment telling his children he won the 2026 Nobel Prize in medicine for groundbreaking research on brain activity.

video via AP – YouTube

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“I hope my story will help other people want to set a lofty goal for themselves and to believe that nothing’s impossible. [You] can do anything if you set your mind to it — truly, I mean, coming from someone who couldn’t walk at a time and now is running.”

— Wyatt Anderson, 17, on completing the Chicago Marathon less than a year after a spinal cord injury left him paralyzed from the neck down.