By Deb Farris
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WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) — Kiah Duggins was just 30 years-old when she died in the crash of Flight 5342. At such a young age, she was already so accomplished. Setting goals for herself as young as 10 years-old. Her mom describes her daughter as inquisitive and compassionate, standing up for the underdog all throughout her life.
“My faith in God. That is what got me through,” said her mom, Gwen Duggins. “I’m so grateful that I got to birth such an amazing human like Kiah and that’s what really gets me through.”
Gwen Duggins relies on her faith. In a year filled with grief. As she remembers her firstborn, Kiah. A daughter who lived a lifetime of adventure in her short 30 years.
“She was my child, but she was a remarkable human being and an incredible role model for young women to pursue your dreams and to never limit yourself in what you can do,” said Gwen. “And I think that’s a story every young woman needs to hear.”
Curious, smart and caring. Kiah started young. In first grade, she came home with her first idea.
“When she was young, she came home from school one day and was like, ‘Mom, I want to write a petition,’” said Gwen. “She was in first grade, and I was like, ‘a petition for what?’ And she’s like, ‘Well, you know, I’ve just noticed that the letter c is really not needed in the alphabet. It just copies k and s, and so we really could have a 25-letter alphabet.’”
By age 10, she had already set goals.
“She came to my husband and I and opened a notebook, ‘Mom and Dad, here are my five and 10-year goals,’ and she was 10 years-old,” said Gwen.
Kiah achieved things in her life that most could only dream of. An accomplished ballet dancer. She graduated from East High School’s International Baccalaureate Program, at the top of her class, Summa Cum Laude from Wichita State with several degrees.
“I think in college is where she found her voice in advocating for others, and decided that in order to change the system, you have to know the system from the inside out,” said Gwen. “And so she decided to become an attorney for that very reason.”
One of the highlights of her life was interning with her idol, former First Lady Michelle Obama, in the White House for five months, helping with the ‘Let Girls Learn Initiative’.
Then shortly after college, Kiah became a Fulbright Scholar, moving 8,000 miles from home to a tiny town in Taiwan where she taught English to elementary students for a year.
“It was very hard for me having her 8,000 miles away,” said Gwen. “But she insisted, and she loved it, and I got to take my first international trip because we went to visit her when she lived in Taiwan, and she says it was the best experience of her entire life.”
Kiah then turned to law school, graduating from Harvard.
“Kiah had very lofty goals, and one of the reasons she wanted to go to Harvard is she felt like, as a woman of color, people don’t really listen to you,” she said. “ And she said, ‘Mom, maybe if I have Harvard behind my name, it’ll give me a little bit of clout, and maybe people will listen.’”
In January of 2025, doctors diagnosed Gwen with breast cancer for the second time. Kiah insisted on coming home from D.C., where she was a civil rights attorney, for her mom’s surgery.
“A friend of ours knew that Kiah had come home for my surgery, and she was watching CNN, and she saw the news of the crash,” said Gwen. “So she called my husband and asked if Kiah was still in Wichita. And we were like, ‘No, she left a couple of hours ago. And so once we knew the flight number, we knew that Kiah was on that flight.”
And that was it. The beautiful, brilliant and bright light of her daughter was gone. Along with 66 other lives on flight 5342 and the army helicopter it collided with.
“So I, you know, wailed and cried and then at about 4:00 that morning, I had intense chest pain and called my surgeon,” said Gwen. “I ended up having to go back into the hospital to remove hematomas and blood clots that had formed from me grieving.”
Kiah’s body would be one of the last recovered. More waiting, more anguish. Now, the Duggins try to move on without her.
“I love talking about her and who she was, because I believe that it’s important for young people to understand that even somebody from Wichita, Kansas who went to Wichita Public Schools can really make an impact on the world,” said Gwen. “And that’s the thing that we have seen the most since she passed. Her impact and her reach was incredible and far more incredible than we even knew.”
While in college, Kiah started her dream of starting a nonprofit for underrepresented girls, a college readiness program she named The Princess Project.
“She named it that because, when she was young, someone told her that princesses were not brown, and so she understood that with her gifts and the privilege that she had been given, that she could be that metaphorical princess for a lot of girls and help them to see that they could reach their goals and their full potential,” said Gwen.
Since her death, her family has renamed it Kiah’s Princess Project. They hope to start working with girls starting in the fall. One more way Kiah’s legacy will live on.
“What makes me really sad is the world lost some amazing humans,” said Gwen. “And you know, the world doesn’t get to experience their light and their gift and their genius, and that’s really hard. You know, as I read about other families, I wept, amazing human beings on that flight with my daughter. So it’s not even just losing my daughter, but the collective loss is incredible.”
After Kiah’s death, Barack and Michelle Obama sent a letter to Kiah’s parents sharing their grief and what an incredible person she was.
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