CHRISTY PORTER Kumbalek was born on the same day Neil Armstrong uttered the famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Mom Sonya Porter seems unfazed about missing the live televised event as she holds her new baby in this 1969 photo.
For the Sonya and Dick Porter family of Cairo, Saturday’s 50th anniversary of the Moon landing had to share the spotlight with their second child, Christy. When Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the lunar surface on Sunday, July 20, 1969, Christy Porter Kumbalek took her first breaths on earth.
“I have always kidded Christy that I had to watch reruns, because she was born when it was live on TV,” laughs Sonya Porter.
Porter says back in 1969 patients at Archbold Memorial Hospital had to rent television sets for their rooms. “By the time I had delivered her, all the TVs were gone (rented),” Porter recalls.
To forever connect their daughter to the momentous day, the Porters chose Diana as her middle name. “Dick’s Dad thought that since she was born on the day that man walked on the moon that her middle name should be Diana, goddess of the Moon,” Porter explains.
To celebrate her 50th birthday, Christy Porter Kumbalek has traveled with her family to various earthly locales, including the beach where her mother gifted her with a shirt emblazoned with an image of the Moon and the year of her birth, 1969.
Kumbalek resides in San Antonio, Texas with her husband, Brien, and their children Kyra and Bennett.
