Chattanooga: Christian radio show featuring local cancer hoax worker is pulled

Keele Maynor’s quiet voice seems stark against barely audible music on an inspirational tape made from a 2005 nationally broadcast radio show dubbed “Words to Live By.”

“I’ve been dealing with this disease for five years, and I don’t want to keep on taking my kids through this,” Ms. Maynor says on the tape. “I was wanting to give up and not fight and stop the chemo, and then I thought that I couldn’t. ... I had to fight for them.”

On the tape, music swells and a radio announcer sums up the story as it was known four years ago — long before Ms. Maynor’s tale turned out to be a hoax. Now officials with Radio Bible Class Ministries, which produced “Words to Live By,” say the show with Ms. Maynor, taped in 2005, has been pulled from the online archive. The show, aired periodically since its taping, used Ms. Maynor’s story as part of a fundraising effort.

The 37-year-old former Chattanooga city employee confessed last week to faking cancer for years while accepting donations of sick pay and vacation pay from fellow workers. City officials said she received more than $10,000 for about 1,550 hours donated by more than 20 workers since August 2003. Chattanooga Police Department spokeswoman Jerri Weary said investigators are “gathering information relative to the allegation of fraud.”

“Today’s program,” intones Barbara Follis, the announcer on the tape, “is about someone who could easily ask the question, ‘Why is life so unfair?’ ... We’d like to help you answer that question by sending you a copy of a booklet titled, ‘Why Is Life So Unfair?’”

The booklet can be ordered “without cost or obligation,” she says. However, the online order form cited on the tape seeks a donation before the order can be accepted.

Ms. Follis could not be reached for comment this week. Assistant Producer Cherie O’Malley, who recorded Ms. Maynor’s “testimony,” didn’t respond to calls seeking comment. A receptionist at RBC, who would identify herself only as Mary, said the organization recently became aware the story was fabricated. She said RBC officials have pulled the show from the online archive.

The show’s 30-minute tape is dated Aug. 14, 2005, and called “Keele’s Story.” That date and title is missing from the online show archive of RBC Ministries, based in Grand Rapids, Mich. The ministry is affiliated with “Our Daily Bread,” a popular Christian devotional publication.

Leighton LeBoeuf, station manager for Chattanooga’s WMBW, a Christian contemporary radio station broadcasting on 88.9 FM, said the show was taped here.

“She (Ms. Maynor) came back a second time to record poems in her own voice to be read at her funeral. ... Obviously, that never happened,” he said.

Mr. LeBoeuf said the Chattanooga woman who originally suggested that Ms. Maynor give her testimony on the show e-mailed the station and RBC officials last week to let them know she had learned the cancer tale was a hoax.

“That’s really unfortunate,” Mr. LeBoeuf said of the situation. “I’m sure Radio Bible Class was surprised.”

On the tape, Ms. Maynor, whose last name was never divulged over the air, relays an unflinching tale of long suffering, beginning with a family history of cancer — seven great aunts, a grandmother and a great uncle — as well as her own bouts with cervical cancer at 21, breast cancer at 29, two more recurrences of breast cancer and a terminal brain tumor several years later.

At every turn, she relates the ordeal with her faith, which she says sustained her.

“I was brought up in a very faith-based and Christian home. ... I loved to go to church,” she said.

A fellow worker, referred to on the tape only as “Sandy,” talks about how inspirational she found Ms. Maynor to be and about how the city and Ms. Maynor’s fellow workers tried to help by donating vacation and sick days to her.

“I have to say that Keele is a real encourager,” Sandy says on the tape. “She lives her life like there’s no death. ... She goes to work every day she can.”

Sandy Hughes, the now-former co-worker, said Wednesday that she feels betrayed.

“It’s been very hurtful and of course surprising,” she said. “I don’t hate Keele, I’m just obviously disappointed and shocked. Her children are like family to us.”

Ms. Hughes said she encouraged Ms. Maynor to go on the radio and e-mailed WMBW and RBC last week about the hoax. She said many people in Chattanooga had prayed for Ms. Maynor for a long time.

“It (the sympathy and support) brought out the best in all of us,” Ms. Hughes said. “Now we must safeguard our hearts. ... Tell people not to hate Keele. Who knows why she did what she did. Be tender.”