Anthony Montana already had watched a great-nephew's fight with bone cancer before doctors discovered cancerous cells in his own lung, lymph nodes and liver.
"He felt that he had lived 72 great years, and he felt like the folks who get cheated the most with this disease and pain are the children," his son Richard Montana said.
Tony Montana died nine months after the diagnosis, wishing more could be done for those children.
What began with his son's high school friends reconnecting on fishing trips would eventually fulfill Tony Montana's wish with a $27,000 donation toward treating some of the rarest forms of cancer and blood disorders in children.
The money will help train the next group of leaders in childhood cancer research, said Dr. Stuart Gold, head of pediatric oncology and hematology in the children's cancer section of the new N.C. Cancer Hospital in Chapel Hill. The hospital was dedicated Tuesday.
"Things like that are incredibly difficult to fund," Gold said of earmarking the money for research fellows.
"It doesn't quite sound as appealing or sexy as some other things in fundraising," Gold said, "but helping to support and train the next generation of people who are going to be doing this business and continuing the research is incredibly important."
Tony Montana, a native New Yorker and Army veteran, was well-known in Greensboro. He came to the city in 1960 as a salesman with a steel company. He opened his own real estate firm, Montana and Associates, in 1967.
He was named Boss of the Year by the Greensboro Jaycees in 1975.
He was active in the community, serving as president of the Summit Rotary Club and president of the Greater Greensboro Regional Board of Realtors. At St. Francis Episcopal, he served as a member of the vestry and provided one-to-one Christian care to hurting people.
Doctors found late-stage lung cancer after Tony Montana started feeling ill in October 2004. The doctors told him he could fight it, but he decided he would rather spend the few months that the doctors said he had with his family and not with chemotherapy.
"He believed that we are going to a better place, and if he believed that for so many years, then he wasn't afraid of going to a better place," said Richard Montana, one of the five Montana children.
A few years ago, Richard Montana and his former high school buddies met in Morehead City to go charter fishing. One friend's mother was fighting cancer. To show their support, the friends held a miniature fundraising fishing tournament. A year later in 2004, Tony Montana learned he had lung cancer.
Some of the friends asked if they could have a tournament for Tony Montana. Richard Montana suggested sending the money from the Reelin' for Research tournament to the cancer center at UNC to find better cures for childhood cancers.
"What stuck in my mind was seeing children who were sick, who were in gowns and walking with IVs, and seeing babies in hospital rooms -- infants," said Richard Montana, who toured the children's wing while approaching Gold with the idea.
The committee of those friends asked other friends and families for pledges and to keep the e-mails going.
Other Montana family members got involved .
"Going into it, our goal was -- in this down economy -- if we made $10,000, we thought it would be a wild success," Richard Montana said.
The group came up with pledges totaling more than $27,000, largely from small contributions.
Margaret Montana thinks her husband would be thankful for the way his encounter with cancer ended up touching young people.
"He would be thrilled to think his children and his dear friends and their friends are supporting this," she said.
Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com To see more of the News & Record or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.news-record.com. Copyright (c) 2009, News & Record, Greensboro, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, News & Record, Greensboro, N.C.