Bob Mills article
May 29, 2010 21:06:19 GMT -5
Post by Raider Country on May 29, 2010 21:06:19 GMT -5
Granddaughter’s cancer plight inspires WSU booster
By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2010
BEAVERCREEK — The night began with Janel Barnett standing in front of a party-minded crowd of some 600 people and giving a short, emotional talk about her 8-year-old daughter Ally, who a year ago was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Then came a short film showing a day in the life of Ally — “one of the good days,” Mom noted — that included a stop at Dayton Children’s Medical Center for a session of chemotherapy and camaraderie with other kids battling cancer.
But nothing on this night was more impactful than the sight of Bob Mills — a bigger-than-life presence in both physical size and entrepreneurial scope — reduced to tears near the back of the stage as he stood in his sweat-dappled coral shirt and tenderly rested his hands on the shoulders of his quiet granddaughter, Ally.
And yet, last Saturday night, May 22, won’t just be remembered for that heart-wrenching scene, but also for the mind-boggling, spirit-lifting events that followed.
Mills, the 60-year-old, Beavercreek-based construction and real estate magnate, is not just one of nine local people running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) Man and Woman of the Year in Dayton, he’s set his sights on the LLS National Man of the Year competition that includes local winners from 63 other cities across the country.
Competitors raise money in a variety of ways — every dollar counts as a vote — over a 10-week campaign that ends here Friday night when all the candidates meet for a fund-raising Grand Finale Celebration at the Schuster Center. The local winner will be announced at the end of the evening.
While he also raised money with a Texas Hold’em Tournament, nothing was more gripping than Saturday’s gala event — called Ally’s Army Battles Cancer — put on at Mills’ Fox Hill home on 50 wondrous acres along Beaver Valley Road.
Mills is involved in philanthropic efforts across the Miami Valley and has a special interest in Wright State athletics, so it was natural the live auction weighed heavily on sports items.
There were 50-yard line tickets to an Ohio State football game, a corporate suite for the Cincinnati Bengals game with New Orleans, VIP Diamond seats for Reds games, tickets to Dayton Flyers, WSU, Kentucky and Ohio State basketball games, Dragons and Kentucky Speedway tickets, a trip to Keeneland, rounds of golf at several courses and much more.
But nothing brought down the house the way Ally did when she kicked off the auction by holding up a bowl she had made at the K12 Gallery in downtown Dayton
“I thought it maybe would bring $1,000,” Janel said.
Instead the bidding went to $5,000, then $10,000 and finally ended at $14,000.
That set the tone and in an hour, the live auction raised $115,000. Add in the silent auction and everything else and a whopping $150,000 was raised for LLS.
“Terry Huber bought Ally’s bowl and she called me this morning,” Janel said. “She told me she wants to give it back to Ally when Ally’s 20 years old and they can look back on this night.”
‘A big-hearted guy’
Some years after Mills moved here from Erie, Pa., with his late wife Marcy, he said he visited the University of Kentucky with local business leader Erv Nutter, who was one of the UK’s most generous alumni and had given millions to construct the Nutter Fieldhouse and the E. J. Nutter Training Facility there.
“He told me the best thing I could do for our community was be a philanthropist,” Mills said. “And he said a good way to do it is with athletics because when sports are successful they draw attention.”
Mills became heavily involved in Wright State athletics. He’s been on the committees that picked basketball coaches. He built new dressing rooms in the Nutter Center. And with his business partner and fellow philanthropist Sam Morgan, along with Fred Setzer, he built the Mills-Morgan Center that houses the Raiders state-of-the-art practice facilities.
He’s also taken WSU athletes — most notably basketball players Marcus May and DaShaun Wood — under his wing after graduation.
As Mills’ businesses became more successful, his philanthropic involvements grew.
“It’s unreal what he does,” Morgan said. “He’s a big-hearted guy ... and when it comes to kids, he just can’t say no.”
Several years ago Mills started the Mills Family Foundation in part, he said, so that one day his two daughters, Janel and Melissa, and their husbands will carry on the giving work.
“From the start, he stressed two simple missions,” said Janel’s husband, Jared. “It was to help women and children in need.”
Vicki Giambrone, vice president for marketing and external relations for Children’s, remembers her first dealing with Mills:
“I was at a fund raiser and somebody said, ‘Vicki, what do the kids need over there?’ Well, we had these big box TVs that were 30 years old in the (hospital) rooms, so I said we could use some new flat-screen TVs — like 200 of them.
“And Sam Morgan says, ‘I’ll give whatever Bob gives.’ And Bob said he’d match so and so.”
Suddenly, a five-year fund raiser was done in five minutes and today every room at Children’s has one or two deluxe flat screens.
www.daytondailynews.com/dayton-sports/wright-state-university-raiders/granddaughters-cancer-plight-inspires-wsu-booster-735949.html
By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2010
BEAVERCREEK — The night began with Janel Barnett standing in front of a party-minded crowd of some 600 people and giving a short, emotional talk about her 8-year-old daughter Ally, who a year ago was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Then came a short film showing a day in the life of Ally — “one of the good days,” Mom noted — that included a stop at Dayton Children’s Medical Center for a session of chemotherapy and camaraderie with other kids battling cancer.
But nothing on this night was more impactful than the sight of Bob Mills — a bigger-than-life presence in both physical size and entrepreneurial scope — reduced to tears near the back of the stage as he stood in his sweat-dappled coral shirt and tenderly rested his hands on the shoulders of his quiet granddaughter, Ally.
And yet, last Saturday night, May 22, won’t just be remembered for that heart-wrenching scene, but also for the mind-boggling, spirit-lifting events that followed.
Mills, the 60-year-old, Beavercreek-based construction and real estate magnate, is not just one of nine local people running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) Man and Woman of the Year in Dayton, he’s set his sights on the LLS National Man of the Year competition that includes local winners from 63 other cities across the country.
Competitors raise money in a variety of ways — every dollar counts as a vote — over a 10-week campaign that ends here Friday night when all the candidates meet for a fund-raising Grand Finale Celebration at the Schuster Center. The local winner will be announced at the end of the evening.
While he also raised money with a Texas Hold’em Tournament, nothing was more gripping than Saturday’s gala event — called Ally’s Army Battles Cancer — put on at Mills’ Fox Hill home on 50 wondrous acres along Beaver Valley Road.
Mills is involved in philanthropic efforts across the Miami Valley and has a special interest in Wright State athletics, so it was natural the live auction weighed heavily on sports items.
There were 50-yard line tickets to an Ohio State football game, a corporate suite for the Cincinnati Bengals game with New Orleans, VIP Diamond seats for Reds games, tickets to Dayton Flyers, WSU, Kentucky and Ohio State basketball games, Dragons and Kentucky Speedway tickets, a trip to Keeneland, rounds of golf at several courses and much more.
But nothing brought down the house the way Ally did when she kicked off the auction by holding up a bowl she had made at the K12 Gallery in downtown Dayton
“I thought it maybe would bring $1,000,” Janel said.
Instead the bidding went to $5,000, then $10,000 and finally ended at $14,000.
That set the tone and in an hour, the live auction raised $115,000. Add in the silent auction and everything else and a whopping $150,000 was raised for LLS.
“Terry Huber bought Ally’s bowl and she called me this morning,” Janel said. “She told me she wants to give it back to Ally when Ally’s 20 years old and they can look back on this night.”
‘A big-hearted guy’
Some years after Mills moved here from Erie, Pa., with his late wife Marcy, he said he visited the University of Kentucky with local business leader Erv Nutter, who was one of the UK’s most generous alumni and had given millions to construct the Nutter Fieldhouse and the E. J. Nutter Training Facility there.
“He told me the best thing I could do for our community was be a philanthropist,” Mills said. “And he said a good way to do it is with athletics because when sports are successful they draw attention.”
Mills became heavily involved in Wright State athletics. He’s been on the committees that picked basketball coaches. He built new dressing rooms in the Nutter Center. And with his business partner and fellow philanthropist Sam Morgan, along with Fred Setzer, he built the Mills-Morgan Center that houses the Raiders state-of-the-art practice facilities.
He’s also taken WSU athletes — most notably basketball players Marcus May and DaShaun Wood — under his wing after graduation.
As Mills’ businesses became more successful, his philanthropic involvements grew.
“It’s unreal what he does,” Morgan said. “He’s a big-hearted guy ... and when it comes to kids, he just can’t say no.”
Several years ago Mills started the Mills Family Foundation in part, he said, so that one day his two daughters, Janel and Melissa, and their husbands will carry on the giving work.
“From the start, he stressed two simple missions,” said Janel’s husband, Jared. “It was to help women and children in need.”
Vicki Giambrone, vice president for marketing and external relations for Children’s, remembers her first dealing with Mills:
“I was at a fund raiser and somebody said, ‘Vicki, what do the kids need over there?’ Well, we had these big box TVs that were 30 years old in the (hospital) rooms, so I said we could use some new flat-screen TVs — like 200 of them.
“And Sam Morgan says, ‘I’ll give whatever Bob gives.’ And Bob said he’d match so and so.”
Suddenly, a five-year fund raiser was done in five minutes and today every room at Children’s has one or two deluxe flat screens.
www.daytondailynews.com/dayton-sports/wright-state-university-raiders/granddaughters-cancer-plight-inspires-wsu-booster-735949.html
