In Tireless Pursuit of Marrow Donors

"It started way back then," Valentine said. "We did all types of community service. He called one event Operation Cookie, where volunteers baked cookies for the prisoners in a local prison. He had another event where he had his chorale sing at the prison."

Twyman was valedictorian of the Loma Linda Class of 1971, earning a bachelor of arts in music. He went on to study music history at Indiana University and became a Ford Foundation fellow.

He has been involved in a number of other humanitarian efforts, including raising thousands of dollars to aid disaster victims.

He founded the Capitol Hill Chorale of the Capitol Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has accompanied recording artists BeBe Winans and Stephanie Mills, and has performed in homeless shelters.

Some of the awards he has received include the Beatrice Campbell Community Service Award from D.C. Mayor's Committee on Persons With Disabilities in 2000. That year, he also won the Measure of a Person Award, presented by a local chapter of the United Negro College Fund to a person who exhibits the characteristics of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Twyman's involvement in the bone marrow issue began in December 1993, when Alicia Nelson, a co-worker at D.C. General Hospital, needed a transplant. Nelson had just adopted a child who had been abandoned at the hospital, and Twyman was determined to help her survive. He arranged for his chorale to sing at her bedside to raise awareness of the need for bone marrow donors.

But in September 1995, Nelson, 27, died of leukemia, having never found a donor. Her death seemed to help Twyman find a new focus.

He was ready to pour the same energy into helping another friend, Effi Barry, the District's former first lady, find a bone marrow donor a year ago. But she ran out of time and underwent a rare medical treatment in a last-ditch effort to save her life. Twyman carried her coffin out of Washington National Cathedral in September.

But then there was a big victory.

When he heard about Ramon Hilliard, then a ninth-grader with leukemia, Twyman kicked into action. Denae Hilliard said her fondest memories of Twyman came during last year's NCAA basketball tournament, when she was placed in the middle of a bone marrow drive for her son on the sidewalk outside Verizon Center.

"He never told me why he needed me to come downtown, but when I got there, he led the effort in finding a donor for Ramon," she said. "He was one of God's sent angels. Everything he does is 110 percent."

Ramon was hanging on to life in a special isolation unit at Children's National Medical Center during those campaigns but today is doing well physically and academically.

"I have a 3.7 grade-point average, and I'm back to lifting weights on the football team," he said.

He will never forget what Twyman did for him, he said.

"It is important in life to not just think about yourself," Hilliard said. "We need to look out for each other, and that is what Mr. Twyman did. It means a lot that somebody had my back and was trying to save my life."