Currently, Pretty Tomboy™ is selling T-shirts with their new logo and design.
From this, they hope to support the redesign of the clothing line and attract a
larger designer interested in partnering with them. Keisha, now 15, has more
esteem than ever. She plays goalie on a traveling soccer team out of Las Vegas
and is getting great grades in her sophomore year of high school.

On the sides of this page, you can view some of the magazines that wrote
articles about Keisha a couple years back. (Click on the photo to see an
enlarged version.) Below is the text from one of the articles which does a good
job of explaining Keisha's beginning.
***Thank you for your continued support of Pretty Tomboy™!***

From the moment she was born in the summer of 1987, Cedric and Joyce
McDaniel knew their baby was special. Keisha McDaniel was two months
premature with a fractured skull, weighed just three and a half pounds and
wasn't expected to live more than a week. And if she did, doctors said she would
be severely brain damaged.

"But she was all fight," said Joyce.

Twelve years later, Keisha McDaniel is 5' 7", 170 pounds, and on the honor roll.
She is the star forward on her school basketball team and the starting goalie on
the Jammers Soccer Club, where most of her teammates are in high school.

And while Keisha is defining herself on the court and the playing field, she is also
making her mark in the equally competitive field of fashion with her own clothing
line called Pretty Tomboy™, whose motto is "be yourself, or please everyone else."

"I wanted to make sure that girls like me could have clothes that made them feel
good about themselves," she said.

Keisha, the athlete, started out as Keisha, the young beauty queen. As a girl, she
entered-and-won a slew of beauty contests in the Las Vegas area. But when she
turned 10 she discovered that playing sports was more rewarding than reciting
poems and walking down the runway. So she traded in her evening gown, patent
leather pumps and tiara for sweats, sneakers and a baseball cap. Along with the
beauty pageants, Keisha tried to give up skirts and dresses-even to go to church.

"It was fun at first-walking down the aisle with a crown on," said Keisha. "It's every
little girl's dream. But at some point I didn't want to be a flashy beauty queen
anymore. When I started playing sports, I didn't want to wear dresses and shoes
that hurt my feet. I wanted to be comfortable - baggyjeans, sweat pants and sweat
shirts. I wanted to dress the way I felt good about myself."

And it was difficult for the McDaniels to find clothes that Keisha could be
comfortable in. At her size, she had outgrown the juniors department. The
pickings were slim. And shopping in the women's department left few hip styles
for a budding teen. The only alternative was the boys and men's department.
"I could only get her to wear a dress to church if I let her wear her
Timberland boots with it," Said Joyce. "So I did."

But the folks at church weren't as forgiving or understanding. Keisha was ridiculed;
her mother chastised. Kids said she looked like a boy. Their parents, slightly more
politic, called her tomboy. The McDaniels quickly changed churches.

"My baby would come home crying, and that's when I had to do something," said
Mrs. McDaniel. "I wasn't going to sit back and watch my baby get hurt."

She told Keisha to draw the kinds of clothes she wanted to wear and got a tailor to
make the "boys" clothes in "girls" colors with a slightly more feminine friendly fit.
Keisha designed baggy jeans and overalls with zip-away legs that converted into
shorts and colorful fleece sweat clothes in pastel oranges, yellows and purples -
colors few boys felt comfortable wearing. She even designed baseball caps with
holes in the top for braids or ponytails.

Keisha's tears because smiles. The cruel, insensitive jokes at her expense were replaced with envy and admiration. "Now she wanted to stand out," said Joyce.

Keisha's zest for independence was tested early when she was rudely thrust into
adulthood when her mother became seriously ill.

"I was diagnosed with diabetes and lupus when Keisha was nine and from then
on her life changed," Mrs. McDaniel recalled. "I have a very supportive husband
who does a lot to keep us going, but Keisha had to really pitch in and do a lot of
cooking and cleaning. She's had to give me my medicine. And she even had to
drive me home once from church when I was too sick to make it myself. And she
was only 10. Keisha has had to grow up quickly."

Despite the illness, mother and daughter were still a team."I couldn't do some of
the things we used to do together, but I could help her fulfill her dream."

Keisha's main goal in life is to help her mother regain her healthy - even if it
means going to medical school herself. But, she would also like to help other girls
develop their self-esteem and individualism.

Pretty Tomboy™ is about me being comfortable and being myself," Keisha said.
"I'm not trying to be like other girls. And I want every girl to know that she can be
herself - she doesn't have to follow the crowd."

by Karen Hunter