Tracy (Depew) Lane had just finished a golfing marathon with her husband in August 2012.
Tracy was a revered golfer in Bemidji, which led to a postgraduate life in professional golf. She married Derek Lane in 2007, a Blue Earth native who also became a golf pro.
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Together, Tracy and Derek enjoyed their lives on the course, including the back-to-back 36-hole days like the ones they played in 2012. But those four rounds carry an unwanted significance for the Lanes as their last days of normalcy together.
The next day, Tracy was diagnosed with stage 3B cervical cancer.
“Here’s this 6-foot-tall, beautiful wife of mine who just played all of this golf, and the next day we find out she has late-stage cancer,” Derek recalled. “She knew she was going to die.”
Tracy died 11 months after her diagnosis at 31 years old. But in the time spent before she took her last breath, she and her family began to spread the message about the urgency of receiving regular medical checkups.
Twelve years later, that message is still being shared.
In 2016, former Bemidji State women’s golf head coach Eric Carlson renamed the Beavers’ annual home invitational. Since then, the Tracy Lane Memorial Golf Tournament has allowed Judy Mayotte, Tracy’s mother, to reach young adult women. Every year, Mayotte travels across the country to the annual collegiate golf invite to speak on behalf of her daughter.
“Being it’s my daughter who has a dying wish that all these girls have to know, it kind of left it with me to be the messenger,” Mayotte said. “I couldn't get a bigger satisfaction than what I get from these girls when they hear her story. What we're doing is wonderful.”
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For the eighth time on Monday morning, golfers teed off to begin the tournament named in Tracy’s honor at the Bemidji Town and Country Club. The 10-team, two-day event is multi-purposed for Beavers head coach Erica Gartner.
“When I took this position, it was important for us to continue this tradition,” Gartner said. “I played in this tournament as a player, and now I’m in it as a coach. It’s important to honor Tracy and share her important message. … We made a promise to Tracy that we’d keep her message going, and Judy has been a huge part of our program in that way. It’s an honor to know her and do this for her and her family.”
The foundation
Growing up in Bemidji, Tracy was an accomplished Lumberjack athlete. She was a four-time letter winner in golf, basketball and tennis before committing to play women’s golf at Bemidji State.
But like many young adults at Tracy’s age, she thought she was invincible.
“I can't tell you how many times I said to her, ‘You've got to start getting pap smears,’” Mayotte said. “After she was married, I said, ‘Are you getting your pap smears?’ And truthfully, she lied to me and said yes when she wasn't.”
In a 2013 interview with the Desert Sun of Palm Springs, Calif., Tracy called herself “ignorant” in her approach to receiving medical exams.
“I didn't take the time to make sure I was healthy," Tracy said in her final days. "l didn't take the time to see a doctor. I didn't think it would happen to me.”
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By the time Tracy died on Aug. 10, 2013, a charity fund had already been established in her honor with the help of Derek and Mayotte.
“Tracy knew she was going to help copious amounts of people by getting regular checkups,” Derek said. “Even when we knew we were going to lose her when she was only 31, she had the mentality to help people, regardless of the demise.”
The Tracy Lane Foundation raised thousands of dollars over five years. The money went to women who could not afford pap smears and people hospitalized with cervical cancer, along with donations to the caregivers of people impacted.
“We just wanted to give back,” Derek said. “I was in an unbelievable position with the people behind me. There was money to be had, but the purpose was to never keep it. I never wanted a cent from it. Through naivete and a lot of love from the people around me, we incorporated into a 501(c)(3), and set up a board that made a good difference.”
The Tracy Lane Foundation also set up a holiday fund where it gives out up to $35,000 worth of presents to people who are hospitalized. It was an idea that spawned from an innocent mistake.
“I remember the Christmas after Tracy died,” Derek recalled. “I took out $10,000 in cash and just walked around the hospital giving people 100s. I was so naive, I didn’t know there were any kind of tax implications in doing that. I just wanted to see people smile and share Tracy’s story. Then, of course, my tax accountant called and said that’s not something I should be doing.”
The foundation disbanded after five years. The remaining funds nearing $225,000 were given to The Bucket List Project, a charity aimed toward wish fulfillment for individuals 18 years and older with life-limiting illnesses and limited resources.
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Derek previously met Nilesh Vora, the head of The Bucket List Project, and concluded it was the right destination for the funds from the foundation after an emotionally taxing five years. It had become increasingly more challenging to retain the dollars from top donors by the foundation’s end.
“It seemed like this perfect segue where we could use the money and fulfill the wishes of the project,” Derek said. “One of the edicts of giving them the money was we get to do the holiday event for at least 10 years. They’ve matched funds, and I don’t see it going away after its success.”
While most of the money was donated to The Bucket List Project, a small amount of the funds from the foundation were set aside to accrue interest for events like the holiday fund.
The end of the foundation came with mixed emotions for both Derek and Mayotte.
“It was bittersweet in the fact that we just thought we'd have a foundation that would go on forever,” Mayotte said. “As her mother, maybe I was the one who thought it was a foundation that would go on. But you have to pay top dollar to get an executive director who runs everything, plans all the events and gets all the gifts that go with an event.”
A continued message
While the foundation has come and gone, Tracy’s family still feels an urgency to inform young adults.
“The impact of her death could not be lost,” Derek said. “One of the things that Tracy and I thought of, and Judy was 100% on board with this, was this message can’t only be conveyed by scaring people. If Tracy’s house was on fire, she’d go buy marshmallows. That’s just who she was, and when you have somebody like that, you know her message would be heard.”
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Mayotte flew into Minnesota from Phoenix over the weekend. She will give a speech to all of the women’s golfers at the Tracy Lane Memorial Golf Tournament this week about her daughter and how her death could have been prevented.
It’s a message she’s given for years.
“If I just hit one girl out of this talk, I've done everything Tracy wants,” Mayotte said. “The one thing that I'm sad about is that the boys don't hear it. They should equally be hearing it as much as the girls do because it has to do with the (human papillomavirus).”
Derek has since separated himself from the annual BSU tournament, but he still cherishes the local efforts to memorialize Tracy and her efforts to educate women in her final months.
“As long as we’re touching people who understand the importance of annual checkups, we’ll never stop talking about it,” Derek said. “We weren’t looking for legacy. Her legacy was her life. Judy and all of the people back in Bemidji have done an amazing job. It’s a special, odd and unique thing about small-town America that never makes these things go away.”
Gartner is in her third season of coaching women’s golf at Bemidji State. She attests that when Mayotte speaks with the student-athletes, the message doesn’t fall on deaf ears.
“Tracy was pretty much like all of these young ladies right here,” Mayotte said. “The fact is that when you're at this age, you don't think you can die. You don’t think you can die at age 31. But you can. And if Tracy had just gone to the doctor, she'd be here today.”
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The Trust Project
