When Andrew Torres of La Cañada received a Congressional appointment to the United States Naval Academy to join the Class of 2002, little did he anticipate a diagnosis of cancer in his senior year. Torres persevered and graduated with his class with a B.S. in History, and was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps as a Second Lieutenant.
For the remainder of his life, he served as an assistant to the Senior Marine at the Naval Academy. In the hours before his death in 2004, Torres asked his family and friends to help find a cure for cancer. In his honor, they have organized six fundraisers, including five golf tournaments. He was posthumously awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for his courage and contribution to cancer research.
That contribution to cancer research continues Mon., May 16, at the sixth golf tournament to be held in Torres’ memory, this year returning to La Cañada Flintridge Country Club, 5500 Godbey Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011.
Tournament entry is $250 per person, and includes a barbecue lunch, awards banquet, plus carts and greens fees. Extra banquet tickets are available for $55 each. Call (626) 792-3175 or write to info@torresbrenner.org for more information. Registration is also available at http://andrewtorres.org/golf/.
Registration begins at 9:45 a.m., a putting contest will be at 10:30 a.m. Lunch will be served at 11 a.m., followed by the shotgun tee off at noon. A silent auction and reception will be held at 4:30 p.m. and the awards banquet will take place at 6:30 p.m.
This year’s tournament will award the Star Ford Hole-In-One Car, a Ford Fiesta Hatch. Covert aerodynamic design and critical technology such as the PowerShift six-speed automatic and 1.6L Ti-VCT Duratec® I4 engine with twin-independent variable cam timing make it a responsive and fuel-responsible driving experience. Inside, the Ford Fiesta is equipped with SYNC.
Six events, including the past five golf tournaments, have raised more than $270,000 for cancer research at Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI) in Pasadena. Past research was directed toward finding a simple blood test to predict liver cancer, and the results of this research were published in 2010 in a peer-reviewed article by J.N. Riggins, W. Corey, A.N. Fonteh and M.G. Harrington, in Disease Markers.
This year’s tournament will raise funds to support research into non-coding RNA by Faye Eggerding, M.D., Ph.D., at HMRI.
Donations, with checks payable to “HMRI,” may be sent to Andrew Torres Memorial Golf Tournament, c/o Law Offices of Torres & Brenner, 301 E. Colorado Blvd. Suite 614, Pasadena, CA 91101, or pay online at www.andrewtorres.org.
