WILMINGTON — The Board of Clinton County Commissioners held a special meeting at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Courthouse flag pole near the corner of South South and Sugartree Streets to proclaim April 2021 as Donate Life Month.
After reading the proclamation, Clinton County Commissioners President Mike McCarty presented it to the Tom and Shelby LaPine Family, whose late son Luke was an organ donor.
At the same gathering on Courthouse Square, a Donate Life flag was raised up the pole, encouraging awareness and recognizing the importance of donations of organs, tissue, and blood.
Among the 25 people present was Bill Repp, who received Luke’s heart seven years ago in a transplant operation.
Shelby LaPine remarked that with Bill there, “Luke’s heart is with us.”
At one point Bill said of the donation and transplant, “It was a godsend. It was a bittersweet thing, you know.”
Luke was working with the Clinton County Highway Department when he suffered severe head trauma on the job on June 9, 2014 from a fall off a truck. He was 19 and had just graduated from East Clinton High School and intended to go to college in California with the goal of becoming a Los Angeles Police Department detective.
Shelby said Tuesday that Luke’s organ donations have resulted in “seven direct saves,” and with his donated tissue and eyes almost 70 people have been impacted.
Also in the group at the flagpole were staffers from Life Center Organ Donor Network in Cincinnati, which facilitates organ and tissue donations in the region. Shelby, an advocate for organ and tissue donation, has volunteered with them.
After the completion of the ceremony, Shelby and Tom LaPine, Bill Repp, as well as officials from Clinton Memorial Hospital and from the Foster J. Boyd, M.D. Regional Cancer Center held a similar flag-raising ceremony at the Boyd Center.
National Donate Life Month was established by Donate Life America and its partnering organizations in 2003.
Observed in April each year, National Donate Life Month helps to encourage Americans to register as organ, eye and tissue donors and to honor those that have saved lives through the gift of donation.
For more information, visit https://www.donatelife.net/ndlm/ .