Wings of Hope -- A big success!

Five months after losing her brother, Victor, to cancer of the pancreas, Maureen Shul received another bit of devastating news: her mother had it, too.

Shul, a former mayor of Castle Pines, had remained at her brother’s side during his four-year battle with the disease and she was equally as attentive during the three months that her mother, who also had Alzheimer’s disease, suffered from it. When Blanche Shul died in the summer of 2009, she passed not knowing that her son had also died from pancreatic cancer.

“When pancreatic cancer barges into your family with no forewarning and little available information from which to draw upon, you are left with horrendously sobering statistics and little else,” Shul states, adding that she and her family were stunned as to how little there was in the way of early diagnostic testing for pancreatic cancer.

“Just as shocking,” she said, “is that the five-year survival rate has remained unchanged at just six percent for the last 40 years and only two percent of the National Cancer Institute’s federal research funding is allocated to pancreatic cancer.”

The double tragedy spurred Shul to action. In cooperation with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, she started Wings of Hope, an aviation-themed benefit held at Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum. It was held just days before the start of National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.(November)

There was a silent auction, cocktails and appetizers, followed by dinner and a talk by Shul’s other brother, Brian, who had been shot down and left for dead while serving as a fighter pilot in Vietnam. His story didn’t end in the jungle; following his rescue, he went on to become a SR-71 pilot of the top-secret Blackbird, the world’s fastest and highest-flying jet aircraft.

“My desire is that Wings of Hope will raise awareness, as well as research funding, to mount a viable assault on this disease,” Shul said. “When you suffer through losses this profound you are compelled to do something to honor your loved ones in ways that will hopefully result in more awareness and tools to help the many others whose lives have been or will be impacted by this horrific disease.”

Guests at Wings of Hope included Walt Imhoff, who lost his wife, Georgia, to pancreatic cancer; Robert and Marilyn Olislagers (he’s executive director of Centennial Airport); Aircraft Performance Group co-founder Rogers Hemphill and his wife, Lorraine; Linda Goto, event planner with The Denver Hospice; Richard and Judith Kleiner; Linda Michow and Sam Realmuto; the John Buffington family; Anne Ricker and Bill Cunningham; Jennifer Havercroft and Greg Miller; Dr. Gregg Dickerson; Steve Mithuen; and Chip and Debbie Coppola. In addition, Judge Patricia Hartman was there from Albuquerque, N.M., while Joseph and Connie Via came in from San Diego, Mary Jamison from Las Vegas and Jeannine Erickson from Vail.

Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314, jdavidson@denverpost.com and @GetItWrite on Twitter