Special District
Mary Jo Dougherty
September 2, 1956 – October 20, 2019
On October 20, 2019, the sun set on the beautiful life of Mary Jo Dougherty. Mary Jo began her legal career as a paralegal before attending law school at the University of Denver and later joining our firm in 1999. She was elected to shareholder of the firm two years later in 2001.
Mary Jo embodied the concept of work hard and play hard. In her legal practice, she worked hard to understand her clients’ needs and provide them with the best possible legal advice. She also served as a trainer and mentor to the Firm’s associate attorneys, and enjoyed speaking on the topics of special districts and municipal finance to educate other attorneys.
Mary Jo also played hard as a double black diamond run skier and world traveler who was always ready for her next great adventure. She was an avid reader, passionate gardener, and loved to cook for her friends and family, including her two beloved grandchildren.
Loving and kind beyond measure, Mary Jo was generous in her support for charitable organizations with both her money and her time. She volunteered for many years to teach cross country skiing and snowshoeing through the National Sports Center for the Disabled. In 2017, Mary Jo was named the Rocky Mountain Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s 2017 Woman of the Year, smashing the previous fundraising record for the title and raising more than $237,000 for blood cancer research!
Diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2013, Mary Jo fought this blood cancer with the same grit and determination that earned her a swimming scholarship, qualified her as a national triathlete, and enabled her to summit 49 of Colorado’s 14ers.
While we miss Mary Jo deeply, she would remind us all to “Live in the Light.”
Mary Jo Dougherty Named LLS Woman of the Year
May 29, 2017…DENVER, COLORADO…Congratulations to McGeady Becher shareholder, Mary Jo Dougherty, who was recently named The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Rocky Mountain Woman of the Year in recognition of her amazing fundraising efforts that yielded nearly $240,000 for blood cancer research and critical services that improve the quality of life for patients and their families.
Every three minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer – that’s over 170,000 people each year. In September 2013, Dougherty’s life changed overnight when she became a part of that statistic. What she believed to be pain caused by a sports injury turned out to be multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that causes cancer cells to accumulate in the bone marrow where they crowd out healthy blood cells. The cancer had eaten away Dougherty’s L3 vertebrae, requiring immediate surgery before she could begin chemotherapy, and then a stem cell treatment followed in July of 2014.
While multiple myeloma is treatable, it is not curable. Following her stem cell treatment, Dougherty was in remission for over a year, but in November of 2015 her cancer markers started rising. She is now enrolled in a clinical trial in an effort to keep the cancer at bay, and her markers continue to bounce up and down. In the meantime, Dougherty has returned to her active lifestyle, and spends as much time as possible skiing, windsurfing, hiking, and enjoying her young grandchildren.
Dougherty was honored to be nominated as a candidate for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s 2017 Man & Woman of the Year Campaign, a spirited ten-week fundraising competition among a group of 17 leaders from across the greater Denver area. Dougherty has never been comfortable asking others for money, but in the midst of so much uncertainty surrounding her own health, she knows that funding LLS research to develop new treatments is the way we will find cures for all those battling not just blood cancers, but other cancers as well. In fact, almost half of the new therapies approved by the FDA from 2000 to 2012 to treat all types of cancers were first approved for blood cancer patients.
At the conclusion of the ten-week Man & Woman of the Year fundraising campaign, the 17 Rocky Mountain region candidates collective raised almost $850,000 for the LLS, far exceeding the regional goal of $700,000. These funds will be invested in leading-edge research that investigates the causes of blood cancers, seeks better therapies, and provides information and services to patients and their families.
Dougherty and her fundraising team raised $239,833 for the LLS, the most among all the Rocky Mountain candidates, and nearly 30% of the regional total. At the Grand Finale Gala at the Denver Marriott City Center on Saturday, May 20, 2017, Dougherty was named the LLS Rocky Mountain Woman of the Year.
Founded in 1949, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer. The LLS mission is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkins disease, and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life of patients and their families.
Nationally, the funds generated through Man & Woman of the Year, along with all other annual campaigns, have helped the LLS to invest more than $1 billion in blood cancer research since 1954, and fund approximately $80 million in cutting-edge research annually, with a current multi-year investment plan of $286.4 million. The LLS also assists blood cancer patients by providing $49.2 million in copay assistance, providing education programs to patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers, connecting patients and survivors for one to one peer support, and sponsoring monthly support groups that provide both peer and professional counseling.
For more information, contact:
McGeady Becher
450 E. 17th Avenue, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80203
303-592-4380