09/13/2026
Yesterday’s event in honor of Christian Royston Scholarship Fundraiser was an amazing day that brought so many people together regardless of what team they cheered for.
Thank you to Christy, Todd, their families and friends for allowing us to host this year’s event.
💛❤️🖤💛
❤️ THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS ❤️
I’m not even sure there are enough words to express how grateful we are for everyone who helped make this fundraiser for Christian Royston so incredibly special.
What happened at this fundraiser was so much more than people coming together to raise money. It was friends, family, businesses, and even people who never had the opportunity to know Christian personally saying, “His life mattered. His dreams mattered. And we want to help make sure his legacy continues.”
To our friends who helped us pull this together — we could not have done this without you. You gave your time, your energy, your ideas, your connections, and most importantly, your hearts. You stepped up every single time something needed to be done. Some of you worked behind the scenes for weeks, asking for donations, collecting auction items, organizing details, setting up, serving food, running tournaments, selling tickets, cleaning up, and doing a hundred little things no one else will ever see.
To Doc’s Lounge — thank you for giving us a home for this event and welcoming all of us with open arms. You didn’t just provide a venue. You gave us a place where people could come together, tell stories, laugh, hug, remember Christian, and turn an unimaginable loss into something meaningful.
To Velvet Trio — thank you for giving us your time and your talent. Music has a way of bringing people together when words sometimes aren’t enough, and you helped make an emotional day feel like a celebration of a life that deserves to be celebrated.
To every person and business who donated food, money, auction items, prizes, supplies or services — thank you for saying yes. Every donation, big or small, became part of something much bigger.
And to everyone who simply showed up — thank you.
You filled the room. You played co****le and darts. You ate with us. You bid on auction items. You bought tickets. You listened to music. You laughed with us. You remembered with us. And you reminded us that even in the middle of tremendous heartbreak, there is still so much goodness in people.
Christian should be here.
But because all of you showed up for him, Christian will continue to have an impact on this world.
His name will be attached to opportunities for future journalism students. His passion will live on through the podcast room at the Iowa State Daily. Students who may never have had the chance to meet him will benefit because he was here.
And there is something incredibly beautiful about that.
Yesterday reminded us that grief and love are so closely connected. We hurt this deeply because Christian was loved this deeply.
So to our friends, Doc’s Lounge, Velvet Trio, every donor, every volunteer, every business, and every person who walked through those doors —
Thank you for showing up for Christian.
Thank you for showing up for us.
And thank you for helping turn our love for him into a legacy that will live far beyond yesterday.
We will never be able to repay the kindness we were shown.
But we will never forget it either.
For Christian.
With so much love. Always. ❤️
