This June at the Dayton’s Challenge tournament held at the Minneapolis Golf Club, however, Lehman took part in a major victory whose reward will last forever. Three years after the establishment of the Lehman Family/Children’s Cancer Research Fund Chair at the University, the chair is now permanently endowed, with $1.5 million. The chair will fund research in children’s cancer at the U for as long as necessary.

Lehman, who studied business and played golf at the University, now resides in Arizona with his wife, Melissa, and their three children. He has maintained connections with his home state, however, and says that in the early ’90s he wanted to be part of a golf tournament that would raise money for a charity. Cal Simmons, an original board member of the Children’s Cancer Research Fund, says that the board wanted to raise money through a pro golf event. Simmons approached his friend Jim Lehman, Tom’s brother and manager, and the Dayton’s Challenge was established. (Originally called the Norstan Challenge, the event will now be the Marshall Field’s Challenge.)

Lehman has hosted the tournament since 1995 and shares credit with his wife and brother for its success. According to Del Johnson, treasurer and longtime board member of the Children’s Cancer Research Fund, the tournament raised $82,500 in its first three years. "That was sort of seed money to get the chair started," Johnson says.

The Lehmans also visit children in the hospital and offer encouragement to their families. "The children almost always are upbeat. It seems like their spirits are pretty good, even in the darkest of times. You walk in and they have a big smile," Lehman says. "It’s the parents who have that look on their face—the deer in the headlights, so to speak. "You think you have things bad because you missed the cut," he continues. "Then you see a child who has cancer who is struggling to stay alive and you realize your problems are pretty miniscule in comparison."

After several years of the golf event, Simmons approached Jim Lehman again, this time about establishing a chair in the Lehman family name. "It seemed that the goal of any event like this should be to have an endowment so that the work of that event could go on in perpetuity," Simmons says. The Lehman Family/Children’s Cancer Research Fund Chair was established in 1997.

To announce the full endowment of the chair, Dayton’s designers used golf clubs and pins to create an actual oversized chair that was unveiled at the close of this year’s tournament. "That was pretty cool," Lehman says. "I thought that was one of the highlights of the whole Dayton’s Challenge history—having all the kids and their parents come out. Parents were coming up to me and hugging me. It makes you realize everything we’re doing is so worthwhile." —Shelly Fling