Help John Atkinson!!!

Below is the email that was sent to me today about John Atkinson, a man from Omaha, graduate of UNL, and a life long golfer. John came on the air today to ask for your vote:

I have a friend who entered a contest to play golf at Torrey Pines, the site of the 2008 U.S. Open, his name is John Atkinson. Out of more that 56,000 contestants he has been chosen as one of the five finalists.

Let me tell you why I’m sending this to all of you. John was diagnosed with Stage 4 inoperable Aden carcinoma--non-small cell lung cancer a year ago tomorrow. John has never smoked and we don’t know how he got this horrible disease. He’s a 39 year old husband and father of 3 children. Most people with this type of lung cancer do not live for more than 5 years after the diagnosis. John, along with all of his friends and family, has taken on the attitude that he can beat this. He has been enrolled in a clinical study at Methodist Hospital for the past year and has gone through numerous treatments of chemotherapy. Thankfully, after a year, the cancer is stable and has not spread to any other part of his body.

Lung cancer is the deadliest of all cancers, yet is drastically under funded and under researched. There is no early detection for this cancer and over 160,000 will die from it this year alone. John feels this is the kind of opportunity to show America what is possible, even when faced with a life altering disease.

Whether you’re a golfer or not I’d really appreciate it very much if we can give John the votes needed to let him play at Torrey Pines. You’ll have to register to vote and if you don’t want to that’s your prerogative. But if you could do me just this one favor I know John would very much appreciate it. Once you register you can vote once a day for the next month and then the person with the most votes will get to play with 3 celebrities, Matt Lauer, Tony Romo and Justin Timberlake, a week before the US Open, and it will be taped by NBC. The other 4 contestants still get to play Torrey Pines they just won’t be taped.


To vote for John, please go to: http://www.gdopencontest.com/