Coal Township (PA) man in need of help

This article was copied from a story that appeared in The News-Item on Sunday, April 29th.

Tour raises money for desperately ill CT man
BY MALLORY SZYMANSKISTAFF WRITERmallory_s@newsitem.com
04/29/2007

COAL TOWNSHIP — Kenny Smink, 37, bought his fishing license last month. He always used to wait until the last minute.

This year, he was prepared early for days of sunny recreation, rod in hand. But about a week after his purchase, he became sick and was hospitalized with cancer.Smink, a longtime member of East End Fire Company, was honored by friends and family Saturday with a Poker Run/ $10 night. The motorcycle ride began in the former Ames parking lot along Route 61 in east of Shamokin, traveled to places as far away as Catawissa and Danville, and ended at the fire company, where there was a party awaiting the riders’ arrival. All proceeds will go to Smink and his family.The ride lasted from 2 to 7 p.m., and the 60 bikers in attendance winded down Tioga Street so Smink could see their efforts from his home. He had undergone dialysis all day at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, and was too tired to leave his bed. “He’d give you the shirt off his back. He’d give you his left arm and he’d bend over backwards for you. He never tells anybody ‘no,’” Danny Worhach, of Shamokin, said about Smink.The benefit ride was organized by Mike Engle, of Coal Township, who has been friends with Smink for about 12 years. He even had someone filming the event so Kenny could see everything he missed.“He’s been a friend for a while. I’m the godfather to one of his children,” Engle said.Smink has two daughters, Kennedy, 10, and Sheridan, 4, with longtime girlfriend Lisa Hornberger. She choked back tears at a table surrounded by friends while looking over a speech she had prepared for the evening.“I truly believe we can receive a miracle,” she had written on a sheet of white paper. She said he was sick for a couple of weeks before the doctors found that he had three different types of cancer. He was hospitalized in late March and sent home Wednesday, April 25. “He’s fighting, he isn’t going to give up,” Hornberger said. Hornberger, a 1988 Line Mountain Area graduate, met Smink about 16 years ago. He graduated from Shamokin Area High School in 1987.“If he (Smink) could be here, he would,” Hornberger said at the fire company. “He’s just overwhelmed with what everybody has done. He’s very, very grateful,” she said.Kenny Smink’s brother, Wade Smink, talked about the call he got from his brother on March 26.“He told me he couldn’t eat and they said they were probably going to hospitalize him,” Wade Smink said.He looked up at the ceiling, pausing to think.“It’s just a shame that it takes something like this to make you realize how much you really care, you know?” he said. Despite his condition, Wade Smink said Kenny’s not giving up.“He’s unbelievable, the strongest guy I’ve ever met,” Wade said of his brother.