SISTERHOOD SPOTLIGHT: JOELL MCNEW

Ten years ago, Joell McNew took a tragedy and turned it into a purpose.

In 2016, a beautiful young student and classmate of Joell’s son, Haruka Weiser, was brutally attacked and killed on the University of Texas campus while walking back to her dorm. It rocked not only the campus, but the community, and caused parents to come together to question how they could ensure a safe place of study for their children.

“She loved our city,” Joell said. “And we let her down.”

Joell took it on as a personal mission. SafeHorns started simply as a social media community of concerned parents. They’ve since spread and reached more than a hundred thousand parents and students across the country.

“There are thousands of parents that are active in the group that I’ve never even met,” she said. “We really only have five active helpers, it’s very grass roots. I went full in. We needed a professional trained in CPTED – Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design – and when we couldn’t find one, I became one.”

As Joell explained it, CPTED is the act of improving the crime rate, the fear of crime, and doing things to deter and prevent crime through intentional design choices.

“A lot of it is just implementing common sense,” she said. “Using technology, keeping lighting maintained, considering signage that might obstruct your view into or out of a gas station that could allow someone to see if I were being carjacked or if they were being robbed inside. Another thing is overgrown vegetation that creates what are referred to as ‘ambush spots’. Also, activating spaces for intended users so that they’re not inhabited by unintended users.”

Joell has also become a personal point of contact for several students who have feared for their safety for any reason, from being stalked to discovering an area of concern on campus.

“I know I won’t be able to prevent it all,” she said. “I know I can’t save them all. But every one that we do help, every person who takes a self-defense class because of us, that’s our legacy. That’s success to me.”

Her impact over the last decade has not gone unnoticed. Recently, after approximately a dozen different people submitted write-in nominations (an astounding amount), Joell was recognized as one of Nexstar Media Group’s Remarkable Women of 2026. The awards ceremony took place over several days in Nashville, and Joell did it all in DDR.

“Everyone loved every outfit,” Joell laughed. “Someone told me that if there was an award for best dressed, I would’ve won it hands down. They all wanted to touch my [Women of the Range] jacket, and when I told the ladies in the bathroom that I won it at bingo night for charity, they were screaming!”

Joell is admittedly a relative newcomer to the DDR family, with her first – and favorite – piece being the Dobie Jacket. How could a longhorn mom NOT love that one?! She was actually complimented on it by Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson and her husband Andrew East on the plane en route to the Remarkable Women awards ceremony.

While that was an exciting encounter (Joell loves their cute videos and social media presence), that wasn’t the last of the surprises that trip. Nexstar Media Group has 125 stations and they accept a candidate from each region – that’s 125 across the entire country, and from a pool of more than 12,000 nominations. Each of the regional winners was awarded $1,000 for their charity of choice, the honor of being the winner for their region, and the trip to Nashville for the awards ceremony. This year, for the first time ever, they declared top winners in five new categories: education, healthcare, business and entrepreneurship, leadership, and public safety/public service.

As you might’ve guessed, Joell was bestowed the honor for Public Safety/Service.

“It was a last-minute thing that they decided to add these five categories, no one knew we were going to receive this recognition,” Joell recalled. “My category was last, and they said my name, and I am up on stage with Leeza Gibbons, and I had brought my son, who is the whole reason I got into this, and I look at him and start crying and having this whole moment.”

That part didn’t make it into the final edit of the television broadcast from the event, but the local media loves Joell, and this piece from KXAN is absolutely worth a watch – but grab your tissues. It features testimonials from a couple of young women on whom Joell has made an indelible impact. And really, that’s all she’s ever wanted.

“When I was a little girl, and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say ‘a fairy godmother’,” recalled Joell. “I needed a hero when I was younger and I didn’t have one, so I decided to become one.”

She has never been paid for her decade’s worth of work with SafeHorns, and is formally affiliated as a 501(c)3 non-profit. If you would like to contribute to the cause, you can learn more about the organization and donate directly through their website.

Joell may be new to the DDR sisterhood, but she’s all in. She attended an Addiction Meetup solo because even though she was a bit apprehensive as a self-admitted “introverted extrovert”, she felt confident in the kind of women she would meet there.

“Double D is a sort of superpower,” she said. “Every woman is unique, and they may not have everything in common, but they have the same core spirit. They’re not afraid to take up space.”

As it turns out, that aligns perfectly with her own life motto: Live loud.

We might just have to add that to our motto… Play nice. Be free. Live loud.