Business, students help out Edmond family
BenefitBoy died last month; funds help cover expenses

BY JOHN A. WILLIAMS Comments 1
Published: October 31, 2009

EDMOND — A school and business are reaching out to help an Edmond couple whose 12-year-old son died in October.

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The school also is planning a blood drive Nov. 9 at the Oklahoma Blood Institute’s donor center at 3409 S Broadway. For more information, go to www.obi.org.

Walker George was a fifth-grader at Washington Irving Elementary School. Since birth, the boy was in and out of treatment and had numerous surgeries because of an intestinal condition.

His mother, Rhonda George, said the condition affecting the bottom portion of his stomach and top of his intestine forced him to be fed through a pump.

"With his condition, he was always going to be a child with tummy aches, the doctors told us,” his mother said.

He lived on a specialized prescription formula costing $65 a can. "He went through a can a day,” she said.

In addition to his intestinal condition it was discovered Walker had developed a latex allergy. "His clothing had to be latex free. Socks, underwear, you can’t have exposed latex touching your skin,” she said.

But through it all, Walker remained upbeat, never complaining. He was all boy, his mother said.

"He told me that he woke up one morning about two years ago and said "I had a dream that God came to me and told me I was going to be a warrior,’” she said.

"He said ‘what am I supposed to do now? I said, ‘Son, you wait for further instructions.’” George said when her son died after surgery in October "he must have gotten his further instructions.”

"The last six months he had been doing fantastic,” she said. "He’d been off his feeding pump. He had been eating 100 percent by mouth. We thought we were on our way ... then.”

He left behind his mother, his father Chad, an Edmond firefighter and sister, Haven George.

Because of his medical condition the family was not able to carry life insurance on their son. So with all the medical costs and burial expenses, a local business and some of the parents of Washington Irving fifth-graders decided to start the memorial.

From 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Nov. 8, Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza, 2000 W Danforth Road, is contributing 20 percent of all sales to the Walker George Memorial Foundation to ease the costs.

Erin Bowlby, the parent of a Washington Irving fifth-grader, is helping spread the word about the fundraiser.

"It will be good to show the George family how much this community cares,” she said. "It would mean a lot to them.”

There is a special connection between the George family and Papa Murphy’s that started some time ago.

Walker also was allergic to tomatoes, Rhonda said. "So when we first moved in to the neighborhood, Papa Murphy’s was so fantastic. They would go get fresh white sauce out of the back, wash their hands to make sure there was no tomato cross-contamination as well as new utensils and make a pizza just for him.”

She said her son loved to walk in the store and order a pizza that he could eat without getting sick.

"It’s the small things in life that make a difference,” Rhonda said.

"There were certain things he couldn’t do and certain places he couldn’t go. So to be able to have something and have someone make a special pizza and do it with a joyful heart that was a blessing.”

Washington Irving fifth-graders are collecting Bionicle and Star Wars toys in Walker’s memory to be given to children who are hospitalized.

The school also is planning a blood drive Nov. 9 at the Oklahoma Blood Institute’s donor center at 3409 S Broadway.

For more information, go to www.obi.org.