A nine-year-old Batavia girl is being honored with one of the Girl Scouts’ highest national awards after her calm and courageous actions during a house fire in January helped save her entire family and six pets, according to a press release from Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa.
Khloe Keeling, a member of Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa Troop 563, received the Bronze Cross — a rare national award that recognizes Girl Scouts whose actions are essential in saving or attempting to save a life at risk to their own. Since 2017, only 25 Girl Scouts nationwide have received the Bronze Cross. The award was presented to Khloe at a troop celebration on August 9th.
On January 2nd, 2026, Khloe — who was just 8 years old at the time — woke in the night to find her house filled with smoke. Rather than panicking, she sent a friend upstairs to wake her sleeping parents, unplugged a space heater, and began rounding up the family’s six pets. Everyone in the home got out safely. The family’s home and all of their belongings were destroyed in the fire. Since then, the family has struggled with housing and insurance paperwork — a particularly difficult situation given that it happened during an Iowa winter. They are currently living in an RV outside their home while awaiting repairs to be completed.
Khloe’s mother, Niki Whitney, said her daughter’s quick thinking made all the difference. “Late at night when her dad and I were upstairs sleeping, Khloe found the house filled with smoke and sent her friend upstairs to wake us up,” Whitney said. “Khloe had stayed calm and unplugged a space heater and started rounding up their pets. We called 911, got outside safely, and waited for the fire department.” Whitney said she later asked her daughter how she knew what to do. “She said, ‘I learned about fire safety at Girl Scouts!'” Whitney recalled. “Our bedrooms were seriously damaged. We could easily have been overcome with smoke in our beds. In spite of the heavy smoke, Khloe bravely and calmly made sure we were all alerted to the danger and we all made it out safely. If Khloe had panicked or not acted quickly, we could have had a much worse outcome.”
Khloe credited a previous Girl Scout troop meeting in which firefighter John Kerr visited to discuss fire safety as the reason she knew what to do in the emergency.
Maura Warner, Chief Brand and Membership Officer of Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois, praised Khloe’s achievement. “We are so excited for Khloe to achieve the Bronze Cross,” Warner said. “Because of her knowledge, she was able to save her family from a very scary situation. She is a great role model for Girl Scouts and shows the value of learning what to do in an emergency, even at a young age.”
Khloe was nominated for the award by her troop leader, Jeanne Lester, who provided extensive context about Khloe’s story and the family she has become a part of. Lester explained that Khloe was a former foster child of Niki and Nathan Whitney, who have been foster parents to more than 10 children over the past five years and make a point of enrolling their foster daughters in Girl Scouts. “Khloe’s parents, Niki and Nathan Whitney are wonderful people. They open their home and their lives to children in need,” Lester said. “So, for however long they get to host these young girls, the girls get to participate in our local Girl Scout troop.” The Whitneys have since become Khloe’s permanent guardians, giving her what Lester described as a forever home — though that forever home was nearly taken from her just weeks after the family moved in.
Lester said she watched the family go through the ordeal of the fire from a close perspective. “They lost the home they had just moved into two weeks prior, along with all of their clothing, belongings and furnishings,” she said. “Even the Christmas presents they had just opened days before in their new home were 100% destroyed.” She noted that the family has also struggled with insurance paperwork in the months since, and that reconstruction at that scale takes months — made all the more difficult by the fact that it happened during an Iowa winter.
Lester said she could not say enough about the bravery Khloe displayed on the night of the fire. “Imagine an 8-year-old finding her house full of smoke late at night — I am sure she was terrified, but she knew the right thing to do and did it with composure and bravery far beyond her years,” she said. “She has already suffered more in her young life than she should have had to. On the night she could have lost everything, she saved the most important things in her life — her forever family.” Lester added: “I could not be prouder of Khloe. She is an amazing young girl.”
The Bronze Cross was introduced in 1913 and is given for saving a life or attempting to save a life with risk to the candidate’s own life. The National Lifesaving Award Review committee considers several criteria when evaluating nominees, including whether the Girl Scout acted at or above her age, maturity, or training; the degree to which the rescue was girl-led; the degree of difficulty and danger involved; the nature of the risk to the Girl Scout’s own life; the amount of assistance received from others; whether proper first aid and emergency care procedures were followed; the extent of good judgment shown; and the circumstances surrounding the event. Since 2017, 268 Girl Scouts nationwide have earned the Medal of Honor and Khloe is only the 25th to earn the Bronze Cross.
Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa serves nearly 13,000 girls and adults from Central and Western Iowa, northeast Nebraska, and southeast South Dakota. More information is available at girlscoutsiowa.org.
