Valley High Alums Plan to Leave Special Friend Behind at Saturday's Iowa Hawkeye Football Game

A group of buddies since their days at Valley High School in the 1970s will be honoring a friend’s last wishes by bringing some of his ashes with them to Saturday’s Iowa Hawkeye football games and giving him one last weekend at Kinnick Stadium.

Tom Sharpe got them in a huddle in 2008 after he found out he had cancer and asked his friends to keep doing what they had been doing since high school – "more reunions, more tailgating, more Kinnick and no regrets,” WHO-TV’s Andy Fales reported.

Sharpe graduated from Valley in 1977 and was the non-Iowa alumnus in the group of friends who will be coming from across the country – each with some of their friend’s ashes, a symbol of the comradery and friendship developed over decades of men’s days out.

The “connector with everyone of those individuals” in the group, Sharp kept the tradition going last fall even when he was weak and in pain from the disease. His friend Jim Lewis of West Des Moines said he was worried his friend wouldn’t have the strength, but he attended almost every game.

Friends are coming from New York, Milwaukee, Orlando and elsewhere for the road trip to Iowa City.

“He’s passed obviously, but he’s bringing us back together still, and I suspect and I pray that will always be the case for many years,” said Tim Raftis, who flew from Orlando with 6 to 8 ounces of his friend sealed in a small plastic bag.

“Well, of course I was concerned… here it is, six or eight ounces of Tom and I was a little concerned going through airport security in Orlando that I was going to get called out,” Raftis told WHO-TV.

They’re not exactly sure where they’re going to leave traces of their friend. They’ll let the day determine that.