Terminally ill former vets director's Waterloo charity golf tourney gains steam
Kevin Dill hopes June 8 tourney will top $35,000 raised last year for vets causes
WATERLOO — Kevin Dill is a career Marine. He doesn’t believe in leaving anyone behind.
It’s ingrained deeper in his psyche than the ultimately fatal Lewy body dementia he’s been dealing with for several years.
Dill, the retired former Black Hawk County Veteran Affairs director, took on a benefit golf tournament co-initiated a few years ago by a fellow Marine, Bart Latham, whom he assisted as county VA director with a service-related disability.
Dill and his wife and primary caregiver, Tammy Gehrke Dill, picked up the banner from Latham, and the event has taken on more support, and causes, to the point where last year it raised $35,000 for a host of community causes.
He and Tammy, will do it again June 8 at Gates Park Golf Course.
Dill believes the tournament will break last year’s mark, as he and Tammy are anticipating more than 200 participants, roughly a 20 percent increase from even last year.
”Tammy and I got involved and we did the golf tournament to raise awareness and money for Dementia Friendly Cedar Valley and the veterans service posts in the Cedar Valley,” Dill said. “It was successful. People liked it. So we did it last year and now we’re doing it this year.”
He wants his “fight for veterans living with dementia and Parkinson’s” not to be forgotten.
”Last year we raised quite a bit, and this year we’re getting toward that goal,” Dill said. “But the whole golf tournament is for veterans and civilians to come out in fellowship to raise awareness for people like me and veterans living with dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons’ and just to help keep Dementia Friendly Cedar Valley going, to help the service posts going. That’s why we do it, and people like coming to it.”
Last year about 160 participated. If participation tops 200, the event may be broken into morning and afternoon sessions. Numerous other businesses have jumped in with in-kind contributions of food and other items. He and Tammy design a T shirt for each year’s event through Shirt Shack.
Major sponsors are Goodwill Industries of Northeast Iowa; the law firm of Ball Kirk and Holm; Magee Construction and Oak Park Estates Assisted Living and Memory Care in Cedar Falls. “We have a lot of private individual who give money, but they want to stay anonymous,” Dill said.
Tournament proceeds from entry fees, sponsorships and Dill’s family fund at the Waterloo Community Foundation will support: Dementia Friendly Cedar Valley; Combat Vets Motorcycle Association 39-6; Cedar Valley Honor Flights and Americans for Independent Living
Cash raised at the tournament and T-shirt sales will go to: Michael J Fox Foundation in honor of Todd Meyer; Black Hawk Family and Children’s Council; The Robert Hibbs VFW Post in Cedar Falls for a flag project and the Carl Letney Evansdale Amvets post.
Dill said the tournament also is partnering with the Cedar Valley Boxing Club, 616 E. Fourth St., which is doing a benefit event the same day for Parkinson’s research. “We will be at the boxing club at 10 a.m. and then Gates golf course at 11:30 a.m.,” he said.
He and Tammy now lives in Waukee. He grew up in Evansdale and was 1983 graduating class president at Waterloo East High School. He also is a former Waterloo police officer, serving in the late 1990s, and was a member of the Waterloo Police Department’s drug crime enforcement unit. He previously was veteran affairs director for Scott County, which includes the Iowa side of the Quad Cities, before returning to Waterloo.
Dill was in the Marines from 1983-91 and served in embassies in Cairo, Moscow and in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, adjacent to Nicaragua and El Salvador when each had internal civil conflicts. He also is a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He also was attached at one point to the security detail for President George H.W. Bush.
He was Black Hawk County veteran affairs director from 2015 to 2018, when his illness forced his retirement. He remains an advocate for veterans, veterans health care and memory health on a number of fronts in the Des Moines and Waterloo areas and statewide.
Dill isn’t letting his own personal malady get him down.
To paraphrase U.S. Marine Gen. Oliver P. Smith at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War, he isn’t retreating. He’s merely attacking in another direction.
More information and details about the golf tournament can be found here.
Tournament T-shirt orders can be placed here
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
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I've seen this tournament advertised on KWWL--nice to know the story and couple behind it.