Melanoma Memorial Page

As long as we live, they too will live; for they are now a part of us; as we remember them. - Jewish Prayer

This memorial page is dedicated in loving memory of those who have lost their lives in the fight against melanoma.

Leslie Ballard

09/06/1958 - 01/14/2005 

When God created Leslie he combined the best of her mother, Betty J. Richard, the best of her father, Loren W. Counce Jr., with as much of Him as He allows any human being. The result was the beautiful, intelligent, caring, loyal, motivated, and self-reliant individual that she was. Despite the many positive attributes God gave Leslie, or perhaps to balance her many blessings, He also gave her an Achilles heel in the form of a melanoma which manifested itself in the diagnosis of metastatic melanoma in August, 2004. She was only 45 years old and the single mother of three children. Leslie's concern for others caused her to request that a fund be established to research and develop a cure for melanoma. When she died  on January 14, 2005, she left a legacy of the love, admiration, and respect of her friends who established Leslie's Fund, at TGen, to fulfill her request.