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White Rock man honoured with Ted Ticknor award

Keith Solinsky recognized for efforts to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer
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Keith Solinsky (second from right) was honoured with the Ted Ticknor Award for his efforts to raise awareness for prostate cancer.

Longtime White Rock resident Keith Solinsky has won the 2014 Ted Ticknor Award for Prostate Cancer Research, after two decades of work raising awareness and funds to combat the deadly disease.

Solinsky received the award on June 16 at the Mr. Lube Tournament for Life, held at Vancouver’s Point Grey Golf & Country Club.

After his own father was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1987, Solinsky conceived of the idea for the Mr. Lube tournament and worked closely with Don Livingston – the then-president and CEO of VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation – to make it a reality.

(Ted Solinsky managed to beat his diagnosis and is living in Winnipeg.)

The tournament – which has just finished its 17th year – has raised more than $2 million for prostate cancer research, and Solinsky himself has personally donated close to $50,000 to the tournament and the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.

Solinsky, who moved to White Rock in 1990, has also helped the foundation raise more than $50 million in the past 20 years, through his work with the hospital’s home lotteries.

The Ted Ticknor Award is named after the former president & CEO of Mr. Lube who, in 2006, lost his own battle with prostate cancer.

The foundation’s website describes Ticknor as “a dedicated leader, with a zest for life that touched and inspired everyone around him. He was also deeply committed to community giving and was actively involved with the Vancouver Prostate Centre – determined to one day find a cure.”

The Ted Ticknor Award is given annually to “recognize exceptional individuals in our community, whose determination to raise awareness and funds for prostate cancer, would make Ted proud.”