Deanna Favre

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deanna Favre, (born in 1970 in Kiln, Mississippi) is the wife of American football quarterback Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers, NFL team and the creator of a Breast Cancer Foundation.

1 Family
2 Family tragedies
3 Breast Cancer Patient and Activist
4 External links

[edit] Family

Deanna and Brett have two daughters. Deanna was a single mother to the couple's 17-year-old oldest daughter, Brittney, for 7 years. Deanna put herself through college while working various jobs - including working for a collection agency.

Deanna and Brett met while growing up in Kiln, Mississippi and were married on July 14, 1996. As of 2006, they have two daughters, Brittany, 17, and Breleigh, 7.[1] During the football season, Deanna and Breleigh live in Green Bay with Brett, and Brittany lives in Mississippi. After the season the family lives together in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.[2]

[edit] Family tragedies

Deanna and Brett Favre, 2nd and 3rd from the left, attend a ribbon cutting ceremony with First Lady Laura Bush in Kiln, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina

On Sunday, December 21, 2003, Brett's father, Irvin Favre, ran into a ditch near Kiln, where years earlier Brett had nearly died. Said Sgt. Joe Gazzo of the Mississippi State Highway Patrol: "It didn't appear that the accident was serious enough to cause him to be unconscious, so that leads us to believe that a medical condition was what caused him to go off the road." Irvin Favre went off the road at 5:23 p.m., according to eye-witness reports, and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. An autopsy done the following day showed that Irvin Favre died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 58.

Several family crises followed Irvin Favre's death.

On October 6, 2004, Deanna's 24-year-old brother, Casey Tynes, was killed in an all-terrain vehicle accident on Favre's Mississippi property.

Then just days later on October 14, 2004, Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer.

More recently, in late August, 2005, Favre's family suffered another setback. Hurricane Katrina blew through Mississippi, destroying their family's home there. However, none of their family members were injured. Brett and Deanna's home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi was also damaged by the storm. Brett and Deanna housed 50 family members in their Mississippi home during Hurricane Katrina.

On December 13, 2005, Brett's grandmother, Izella French, suffered a stroke.

[edit] Breast Cancer Patient and Activist

Deanna made headlines in October, 2004 after being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 35. Following a lumpectomy and 5 months of chemotherapy, she is recovering well. She is expected to make a complete recovery.

In 2005, Deanna started selling pink Green Bay Packers hats to raise money and awareness for breast cancer. These pink hats outsold regular Packer hats during the first half of 2005.

Deanna created The Deanna Favre Hope Foundation [3] which supports breast cancer education, women's breast imaging and diagnosis services for all women, including those who are medically underserved.[4]

Even before she started The Deanna Favre Hope Foundation, Deanna ran the Brett Favre Fourward Foundation which has raised more than $1 million for disadvantaged or disabled children in Wisconsin and Mississippi.[5]