Mayo Regional Hospital’s Tracy Hibbard Kasprzak Cancer Treatment Center dedication ceremony set for Sept. 23
DOVER-FOXCROFT — The public is invited to the Tracy Hibbard Kasprzak Cancer Treatment Center dedication ceremony and open house from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Sept. 23 at Mayo Regional Hospital. There will be a short dedication, ribbon cutting and dignitary remarks, followed by tours of the center and light refreshments. Attendees are asked to use the Dwelley Avenue Resource Center entrance.
The program will include a welcome by Mayo Regional Hospital President and CEO Marie Vienneau and remarks from David McDermott, MD, medical director of inpatient and emergency services, Elizabeth Dennis, MD, outpatient medical director, Hibbard Kasprzak’s mother Jane Hibbard-Merrill and Melissa Graham, sister of the center namesake.
Hibbard Kazprzak’s children Aliza, Alex and Josh Kasprzak will be a part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony and Hibbard-Merrill and Graham will unveil the memory wall. Hospital chaplain Rev. Ray Beless will provide closing remarks and a prayer before refreshments and the open house.
The Tracy Hibbard Kasprzak Cancer Treatment Center will be dedicated in loving memory to the life of Hibbard Kasprzak, who lived her life with kindness, generosity, good humor and grace.
She was born March 8, 1962, the daughter of the late Gary M. Hibbard and Hibbard-Merrill. Hibbard Kasprzak graduated from Foxcroft Academy in 1980 and went on to receive her registered nursing degree from Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor in 1995. She worked in the nursing field in the Bangor area until she returned to her hometown in 1998 to work alongside her mother and sister at the family-owned Hibbard Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
Hibbard Kasprzak was first diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 37. She vowed at that time never to give up and to fight for a cure. Hibbard Kasprzak underwent chemo and radiation therapy and major surgery, along with various experimental treatments throughout the U.S. searching for that cure. During her 15-year battle with cancer, Hibbard Kasprzak was sustained by her devoted husband Jamie Kasprzak and their three children and she realized the importance of having private and comfortable treatment near family, friends and a supportive community.
Hibbard Kasprzak died March 25, 2014 surrounded by her loving family.
The hope of her family, who contributed significant seed funding to build the center, is that the Cancer Treatment Center will be a lasting legacy of Hibbard Kasprzak’s life.
Observer file photo/Stuart Hedstrom
BIG SWING AND A HIT — Jane Hibbard-Merrill takes a ceremonial sledgehammer swing in February, while her husband Charles Merrill looks on, at the future home of the relocated and expanded oncology unit on the second floor of Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft. Two years prior the hospital announced that Hibbard-Merrill and her family were making a $250,000 gift to oncology services in memory of Hibbard-Merrill’s daughter Tracy Hibbard Kasprzak. A dedication ceremony and open house for the Tracy Hibbard Kasprzak Cancer Treatment Center at the hospital will start at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 23.