Leukemia slows retired firefighter, master chili chef From the Cincinnati.Com ยป The Enquirer BY CLIFF RADEL CRADEL@ENQUIRER.COM DELHI TWP. - Gumby's OK. Pass it on. That's what Bill "Gumby" Donovan tells everybody. Truth is, the 53-year-old championship chili chef, retired firefighter and unstinting volunteer for good causes feels rotten. He has leukemia, and it has kept him from cooking chili since October.
Making the spicy stew is one of his passions in life. And, he's extremely good at it. He is a repeat winner of the Cincinnati and Ohio state chili cook-offs. From 1989 to 2004, he and his wife, Gail, ran the cook-offs at the Cincinnati chili festival, which raised $250,000 for the Cincinnati Fire Museum. They have placed in big-league chili contests in Chicago and Wheeling, W.Va., as well as the International Chili Society World's Championship cook-offs, where the Donovans regularly reach the finals. Donovan would love to be able to whip up a batch of his firehouse "Code 3" chili. But, his body and his doctors won't let him. He was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia in December. This fast-growing cancer of the blood and bone marrow has sapped his strength. Chemotherapy has claimed the hair atop his head and his trademark mustache, but not his sense of humor. "My upper lip feels as bare as a baby's booty," Donovan said as he sat at his kitchen table. He spoke through a germ-filtering mask. "I always wanted to be the Masked Man," he said. The Lone Ranger he's not. Dozens of friends and firefighters are staging a fundraiser Saturday at Cheviot's Memorial Building to help pay for some of his medical bills. Their efforts - while appreciated - trouble him. As do the bills. After his diagnosis, Donovan spent 30 days in the hospital. Injections to boost his blood-cell levels cost $300 a shot. Each chemo session runs in the thousands. Those bills mount up. But Donovan is uncomfortable talking about his troubles. "Being in the business of helping people," he said. "I have a hard time accepting people helping me." He has to be reminded that no one is putting a gun to the volunteers' heads. They're doing this just as willingly as he did when he ran into burning buildings or cooked chili for free to raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the American Cancer Society. For 20 years, Donovan served on the Cincinnati Fire Department. A back injury, suffered while responding to a fire, put an end to his career in 2006. What a career it was. His work as a chef earned him accolades and awards. His work as a firefighter earned him the respect of his peers and his nickname. He once calmed an injured girl by giving her a plastic figure of his favorite TV character, Gumby. Since he was a kid, Donovan has liked Gumby, the green clay TV character. He had figures of the guy everywhere, including one on his dashboard as a St. Gumby. One hot July morning in 1987, before walking into his Price Hill firehouse, he removed Gumby from the dash. "He might melt." Suddenly, a call went out: 9-year-old girl. Hit by a car. Donovan took the run. At the accident scene, he saw a mangled bike and "a girl sprawled in the street with two broken legs and in pain big time." As paramedics prepared to insert an IV needle in the girl's arm, Donovan stuck his hand in a pocket to pull out some alcohol wipes. Out came the wipes and Gumby. The little girl laughed. She asked for Gumby. Donovan gave it to her. The paramedics gave him the nickname. Always a giver, Donovan intends to pay back everyone who has helped him since December. "If the man upstairs gives me another shot," he said, "I'm going to get a hall and make a big, big batch of chili and feed them on me." That will be his way of saying thanks and letting people know: Gumby's OK. | 
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