A Blue Angel
Duke student Bobby Menges died of cancer in September 2017. But he is still changing the experience of cancer for other young people through the Duke Teen and Young Adult Oncology Program, a student fundraiser he inspired, and a foundation that his family started in his memory.
Mallori Thompson, administrative director of Cancer Support and Survivorship at Duke, keeps a coin-sized metal angel at her desk. When she feels frustrated, she rubs it. “It reminds me of why I’m doing what I’m doing,” she says.
The angel was a gift from Liz Menges, whose son Bobby Menges was diagnosed with cancer for the third time in 2016 when he was 19 years old and a freshman at Duke University. Thompson met Bobby only once, in 2017, for an hour. But their conversation shapes what she does to this day.
