Now in its 40th year, the Killebrew-Thompson Memorial Golf Tournament saw nearly 300 participants come together for a variety of fun events and fundraising last weekend in Sun Valley. The K-T was named partly after Minnesota Twins shortstop Danny Thompson, who was diagnosed with leukemia while still active in baseball. After Thompson’s passing, in December of 1976, his teammate and friend, Harmon Killebrew, wrote a check for $6,000 for leukemia research, and that was just the beginning of the Killebrew-Thompson Memorial.
Along with the tournament, the weekend was capped off by a performance of the band, Foreigner.
“It was the perfect ending to a great weekend,” said Hannah Stauts, executive director of the Killebrew-Thompson Memorial. “They understood the cause and did everything they could to support it. They came up with the idea that all the proceeds from the sale of their CDs at the concert would go straight to the K-T. We also auctioned off a guitar to be signed by the band that sold for $6,500.”
In 2015, the K-T donated $14.8 million to their beneficiaries, including the Masonic Cancer Center in Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota and St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise.
“We don’t restrict the funds,” Stauts said. “Our beneficiaries are able to use the unrestricted funds to leverage other money. They use our funds to match and obtain more funding. They say our funds allow them to get two to five times the amount that we give them.”
For more information, visit www.killebrewthompsonmemorial.com.