Auf Wiedersehen…Swish
Last week was one we’d just as soon forget around here. The Elks National Foundation lost two special friends to cancer.

The morning of the 9th, we learned that Lee Weigel had died. Our most generous donor, Lee was a fixture at our Convention events the past few years. The Florida resident lost her husband, Gunther, in November 2009 and always felt that with better medical care, he’d still be with her.

In July 2010, Lee started working with us to do something about that. With a series of generous gifts, she funded the Gunther & Lee Weigel Medical School Scholarship, which is now available to Elks scholars who are going on to medical school.

We’ve now awarded 20 of these $20,000 scholarships and have sufficient funding to award one more next spring. The scholarship won’t end then, however; Lee included a generous provision in her will that should allow us to perpetuate the program.

Then Friday evening on Facebook, we started seeing posts about Linda Cronk. Soon after, we received word that she had lost her battle with cancer.

Linda and her husband, Cam, ran the Hoop Shoot program out of their home in Billings, Montana, for 15 years, until a recurrence of Linda’s cancer forced them to retire in 2012. That news was devastating for the close-knit Hoop Shoot family. As one of the Regional Directors put it, “Linda was the glue that held the Hoop Shoot together.”

The news got worse. A few months after the Cronks retired, we learned that their 5-year-old granddaughter, Calle, had an inoperable brain tumor. Many of us met Calle at Cam and Linda’s retirement party at the 2012 finals, and the thought that she and Linda both were sick was too much to bear. We wondered then—and still do now—How much sorrow must one family endure?

Calle died last year. Her grandma is with her now, just as Lee has been reunited with Gunther.

They’ve left us, but through the ripple effect of our philanthropy, their legacy remains. Through their 20 medical students and the ones who follow, the Weigels will continue to improve lives. The rippling will continue as patients recover and help others.

Similarly, in her time with the Hoop Shoot, Linda worked with hundreds of kids, helping to instill in them values that will serve them on and off the court for the rest of their lives. Values that they’ll impart to others as the rippling continues.

We don’t know that Lee and Linda ever met. Perhaps at one of our events before Linda retired. Regardless, their legacies may meet one day. Even now, their legacies are traveling to places they have not been and helping people they will not meet.

In this way, Lee and Linda will always be with us.


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