The St. Valentine’s Day Luncheon and Fashion Show patron party guests at the Tower Residences at the Stoneleigh on Tuesday, February 9, may have been prepared to hear about the fundraiser’s raffle and check out the model unit. But chances are, they weren’t prepared to meet Luke Lange.
They soon learned that he’s a pretty incredibly cute fella. Be very nice to this dude because he’ll probably be president of the U.S. or something better.
What makes him so special? After all, there are a lot of impressive pre-teens in North Texas. And there are a herd of parents and siblings surrounding these stand-out types.
But Luke at the age of nine was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Luckily, Luke, like other youngsters facing such a challenge, had a family — parents Tracy and Ben Lange and fashion diva kid sister Livia Lange — to help him through the diagnosis and the treatments.
Ben admitted that the diagnosis had created a life-changing experience for the young family. But they tackled it as a united front by seeking the best medical help and coming together as a family.
True, the diagnosis boded challenges. Tracy and Ben realized the ramifications. All things would have to take a rest while they took care of the family crisis. Luke would suffer the needles and the pain. His sister Livia Lange could become a “shadow sibling.” But as a team the Langes tackled it as a united front by seeking the best medical help and coming together as a family.
Evidently not only did the Lange clan’s efforts work, it benefited others facing leukemia and lymphoma. It seems that while Luke was going through his treatments, he really didn’t care for the hospital garb. His comfort level, like other patients, was a T-shirt. But then there were those needed tubes and ports for chemo and other treatments. So, industrious Luke worked with a tailor to create soft-cotton T-shirts with “fast-snap buttons on both the left and right side of the shirts. The fast-snap buttons run the entire inseam of the shirts from the bottom of the shirt to the end of the sleeve. This provides easy access for the medical staff to ports and other areas of the upper torso without having to remove or pull the shirt up.” It was such a hit that Luke started getting requests from other patients for one.
Next thing you know, a family friend by the name of Mark Cuban learned of the “snapped T-shirts” and joined on board, helping to have T-shirts with the Dallas Mavericks’ logo made.
As patron party guests like St. Valentine’s Day luncheon Co-Chair Gina Betts and her “betts half” Ken, Deedee Lee, Janie Condon and Claire Emanuelson arrived at the party, there was Luke with a table set up to sell his Luke Fast Breaks T-shirts.
In honor of the St. Valentine’s Day Luncheon, the Lange family had gotten Alicia Landry‘s approval to have special T-shirts made with the late Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry‘s likeness. For each one purchased for $25, the entire amount benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of North Texas. As for the shirt? It goes to a patient undergoing treatments.
In return, Luke was selected to receive the Tom Landry Spirit Award on Tuesday, February 16, at the luncheon.
Sure, the Dallas Cowboys’ legendary coach had succumbed to leukemia before Luke was born, but if one believes in reincarnation, perhaps Landry’s winning gene was part of Luke’s DNA.
BTW, Luke’s product, salesmanship and mission paid off at the patron party to the tune of $2,500. That means 100 patients will receive Luke’s snappy T-shirts.
* Photo courtesy of Luke's Fast Breaks T-shirts