Huntley woman surprises parents with holiday return from Kuwait

Myranda Anderson, who will turn 21 on Friday, already has accrued a lengthy list of accomplishments.

She joined the Illinois Army National Guard her junior year at Huntley High School, graduated high school in 2018, attended the University of Illinois-Chicago as a pre-med major for 1½ years and served the past year deployed with her National Guard unit in Kuwait.

Anderson’s most recent notable feat had nothing to do with decontaminating people or their suits, as she had done in Kuwait with the chemical corps, or with solving a chemistry problem as she would in class at UIC.

It was all about master planning.

For more than a month, Myranda practiced subterfuge, sent pictures home and collaborated with friends, not revealing her plans for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Then, on Friday, as her father, Curt, and mother, Shawn, were planning a homecoming/birthday party for Myranda and Madalyn, her twin sister, at Huntley’s Parkside Pub, Myranda walked in.

“My mom’s not one you can surprise,” Myranda said. “She’s not easy. I was planning for a really long time. I was planning on surprising everybody, but I couldn’t surprise my best friend [Jeremy Salerno]. He picked me up from the airport.”

Salerno took Anderson to Chicago last Wednesday, where she surprised Madalyn at their apartment near UIC. She laid low for the better part of two days until surprising her parents on Friday.

“I was so focused on her surprise party, I didn’t notice the hints in front of my nose,”said Shawn Anderson, who teaches biology at Dundee-Crown.

Myranda Anderson sent her mother pictures taken in Kuwait and Germany, then in North Carolina. The thing is, she took the photos before, then sent them after she had arrived back in Texas.

Even on Friday, Madalyn went to the Andersons’ home, while Myranda hung out with another friend, Bria Pahlke, before heading to Parkside.

Myranda is the youngest of the Andersons’ three girls. Sydney graduates from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater on Saturday. Myranda saw joining the military as a way to take care of her own way through undergraduate school and medical school. Also, Gazebo Valor Quilts will present Myranda with a quilt and a letter thanking her for her military service.

“With all three of us in college, I didn’t know if my parents could pay for all three,” Myranda Anderson said. “I found my own way.”

After that, she will find a medical school that the Army will pay for. After graduating there, she will have a commitment to the Illinois National Guard. Anderson wants to become a cardiothoracic surgeon, which specializes in heart, lungs, esophagus and other chest organs.

“She’s wanted to go to the military since the seventh grade,” Shawn Anderson said. “She always liked to watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ ”

Actually, Myranda Anderson’s life path changed her sophomore year at Huntley when she took a project medical class. She was fascinated with anything science-related.

“I tell my mom all the time she made me a science nerd,” Myranda Anderson said.

Shawn Anderson had planned for the Illinois Patriot Guard Riders to escort Myranda home from O’Hare International Airport on Monday. The Huntley police and fire departments were supposed to take over the escort once they reached Huntley’s city limits.

Instead, it was Curt and Shawn Anderson who received the nice holiday surprise.

“Nobody can usually pull off anything on me,” Shawn Anderson said. “She was back in the states before Thanksgiving. She had been planning this for months.”