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  • Fred Fitch, right, and son Michael stand beside a poster with drawings of the Leah M. Fitch Cancer Center now under construction on the grounds of Comanche County Memorial Hospital. The decision to name the center was announced Friday at a luncheon for the Spirit of Survival race weekend, a fundraiser for the Cancer Centers of Southwest Oklahoma.

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October 9, 2009

GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

Cancer Center named for the wife of Chickasha supply business owner

By STEPHEN ROBERTSON

Lawton Constitution



Leah M. Fitch lost a seven-year struggle with breast cancer in 2006, but she won’t be forgotten by her family and her many friends — or by the hundreds of patients each year who will be visiting Lawton’s new cancer center named in her honor.

At a Friday luncheon kicking off Spirit of Survival weekend — a fundraiser for the Cancer Centers of Southwest Oklahoma — Comanche County Memorial Hospital President Randy Segler announced that the new cancer center under construction on the hospital grounds will bear Fitch’s name, thanks to a gift from her husband Fred and sons Michael and Alex.

“Leah would want to be a leader in this Southwest Oklahoma Cancer Centers’ building,” said Fred Fitch, owner of Fitch Industrial and Welding Supply in Chickasha.

His family learned firsthand the difficulties that cancer patients and their loved ones endure during treatment, he said, and it wanted to help others in similar situations by providing cancer treatment close to home for those who couldn’t travel because of distance and cost.

“This community’s been good to us,” he said. “We’ve been very blessed in the fact that we’re able to do it.”

He said his wife had made many, many good friends — “Leah could walk into any room and just brighten it up,” he said — and loved Lawton.

“Leah was a wonderful person, and Leah loved life,” he said. “She loved people. She loved this community.”

Fitch said it was remarkable that the three hospitals involved in the Cancer Centers of Southwest Oklahoma “with separate egos, vying for the same patient load, sat down and said, ‘What is the best for these communities?’”

Cancer Centers of Southwest Oklahoma already has locations at Duncan Regional Hospital and Jackson County Memorial Hospital, and the one in Lawton is set to open in December.

The 24,000-square-foot Leah M. Fitch Cancer Center will feature a state-ofthe-art radiation oncology linear accelerator, 16 chemotherapy patient treatment rooms and medical oncology services.

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