At 2 a.m. Sunday, while most of Lawrence was sound asleep, John Naughtin bolted awake to the sound of the telephone ringing.

It was the call Naughtin had hoped for. His 12-year-old daughter, Rose, a seventh-grader at Central Junior High School, was awaiting her second heart transplant in eight years, and a donor heart had been found just 3 1/2 weeks after Rose had been diagnosed.

By 4 a.m. the Naughtins were on a jet headed for St. Louis.

“Rose went into surgery around 3:30 p.m. on Monday,” family friend Deb Rake said. “They began around 4 p.m., and by about 8:30 p.m. they were finishing up. Her dad called me around 9:30 p.m. with the news.”

Rake said Rose was in the intensive care unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, the same hospital where she underwent her transplant in 1996.

The average length of stay for a child receiving a heart transplant at Children’s Hospital is 18 days, and Rose will remain there as long as necessary, Rake sad. The Naughtins likely will remain in St. Louis for about three weeks while Rose continues to recover and be monitored by doctors.

“I don’t know anything definite except that surgery went really, really well,” Rake said. “We’re all very happy for her. The most important thing is that she has a heart and she’s doing well.”

Rose’s transplant puts a spotlight on the fact that April is National Donate Life Month. About 1,000 people in Kansas alone are awaiting a live-saving organ transplant of some sort. Rose was part of that list until Monday. Those interested in learning more about being an organ donor can contact the Midwest Transplant Network at www.mwob.org.

With Rose’s transplant are plenty of uninsured costs for which the family must account. Numerous benefit concerts and fund-raising activities are planned to help defray the Naughtins’ expenses. Support for the family has been strong so far, and the fund-raisers will continue during the next month, friends said.

“I think fund-raising is going well so far,” Rake said. “We’ve had great response from the community. I guess that’s why I love living in Lawrence. It’s unbelievable.”