Don Dickmeyer: Proud to Play a Part

This article is the first in a series of four highlighting employees who support I’m Proud To Play A Part, the employee contribution initiative benefiting the Ambulatory Care Center and Cancer Center Campus.

If you are one of the many longtime employees at the med center, it’s likely you knew Patricia Dickmeyer. She worked at UNMC for 31 years. She was respected for her work.

Don Dickmeyer is Proud to Play a Part in supporting the new Ambulatory Care Center and Cancer Center Campus. Watch his video and learn why.

Her husband, Don, is proud to say that after several years in the biochemistry department, she was the first employee hired by the School of Allied Health Professions.

She died of colon cancer 13 years ago.

“Colon cancer is kind of a quiet cancer,” Don says. “They don’t really have a good way to diagnose it early enough to save people’s lives. Hopefully in the next 10 years something will be developed to allow that to be discovered prior to it spreading like it does.”

Don knows a lot about cancer, about research, about care. Too much; he knows more than he ever wanted to.

If you’ve worked here for even a short time, you might know Don, too. He’s a construction project manager for Facilities Management and Planning. He’s been at UNMC for 40 years. “That’s two-thirds of my life, when you think about it,” he says.

He and Patricia were married for 29 of those years.

Now Don is speaking out on behalf of the “I’m Proud To Play A Part” campaign, an employee contribution initiative to raise support for the new Ambulatory Care Center and Cancer Center Campus.

And so Don is sitting to have his picture taken, he’s speaking into a video camera.

It’s tougher than you would think to say the lines you want when the camera is rolling. But he keeps on. This is important to him.

This is for all the wives like Patricia, and all of the husbands who will have to learn more about cancer than they ever wanted to know.

Omaha should have this kind of cancer center. “I think it’s long in coming,” Don says.

Previously, he’d been part of establishing the Patricia A. Dickmeyer Memorial Allied Health Scholarship Fund. That, like this, was an employee effort.

“A lot of the money that went into the scholarship was donated by people on campus,” Don says. Thanks to so many, it’s now an endowed scholarship. “So it’s always there.”

Like the cancer center, it will stand in her memory, helping people, for a long, long time.

To participate, visit nufoundation.org/proudtoplayapart.

I’m Proud To Play A Part is managed by the University of Nebraska Foundation.