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ELIZA WILEY/Independent Record
From left Carol and Paul Parsons give big smiles and a warm embrace to Andrea Gregg, community realtions director of Donate Life Today, after she presented them with the flora-graph depicting their son, Bronson, whose organs in 2008 were given to four recipients waiting for a second chance at life. The flora-graph was created of all-natural ingredients such as coffee grinds for the eyebrows, crushed and dried statis flower for his blue eyes and freeze-dried strawberries for the red in his lips and was featured on the 2010 Donate Life Today award-winning Rose Parade float.
HELENA — Carol Parsons, whose son Bronson was killed in a hit-and-run accident more than two years ago in East Missoula, says she’ll never forget her son, of course — but that it’s some comfort to know he lives on in others, through his transplanted organs.
Members of the Parsons family — Carol; her husband, Paul; and their daughter, Erin — were in Helena on Monday to help kick off this month’s “college challenge,” a push to sign up young Montanans as organ donors.
About 62 percent of Montanans already are registered as organ donors, putting Montana in the “top tier” among states for donor sign-ups, said Jennifer Knight, the Montana state lead for Donate Life America, a nonprofit group that promotes organ donation.
But 220 Montanans remain on waiting list for donated organs, without which many will probably die.
“There is so much more work to do,” Knight said. “We’re trying to raise the awareness of the issue and the registration. This is a chance to honor the organ, tissue and eye donors across the state and their families.“
The college challenge is a contest among 17 Montana colleges, to see which one can sign up the most organ donors this week. Student volunteers are setting up booths on campuses this week and using social-networking sites like Facebook.
Montanans can sign up as organ donors when they renew their driver’s license, but they also can sign up on-line, at www.donatelifetoday.com or www.serve.mt.gov, which is the governor’s Office of Community Service.
Colleges of similar size compete against each other, with three levels. Last year, the winners were Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell, Rocky Mountain College in Billings and the University of Montana in Missoula.
Bronson Parsons died in January 2008 at age 25, after being struck on New Year’s Eve by a vehicle as he walked along the shoulder of Montana Highway 200 with friends in East Missoula. His donated organs went to five people. Carol Parsons, a retired teacher who lives in Troy, said Monday tjat she’s written letters to all of the recipients and has spoken with two of them. “As a donating family, all you want is for someone to say ‘Thank you,’ just to acknowledge the gift,” she said.
One of the recipients turned out to be from Idaho, living a mere 20 miles south of the Parsonses in Troy.
Carol Parson said that she’s spoken with the man who got a new lung from her son and that he’ll sometimes call as he drives past the cemetery where Bronson is buried.
This year, Bronson also became the first Montanan to be featured on Donate Life America’s float in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. The floats must be made entirely of natural material, and a “flora-graph” of Bronson’s image that appeared on the float was presented to the Parsonses on Monday. “In this way, he is representing all Montanans who have made that decision to register,” Carol Parsons said. “By doing so, they have offered themselves as the ultimate gift to others who are needing a transplant.”
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