ASHLAND — Twelve years ago, Steven Stone, 53, walked into a tobacco store in Morgan County to pick up some special-ordered cigarettes.

A radio broadcaster, Stone had recently moved from Missouri to eastern Kentucky and had been issued temporary checks by his new bank. After writing one to pay for his purchase, the woman behind the counter asked for his driver’s license and commented he was “a mere child.”

“It was love at first sight,” Stone said.

Two years later, that woman, born Sherry Kay Smith, became his wife.

The couple had a close friendship that was rooted in shared passions, including “a love of life, music, laughter, good food, cigarettes, family and loving friends,” Steven Stone said.

Later, however, they would also share in a long and arduous war.

Sherry Stone was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 when a tiny lump she’d had on her left breast for years grew larger and became painful. She underwent a radical partial mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and radiation treatments and emerged with a clean bill of health.

They had fought their first battle and won.

Although Sherry Stone’s breast cancer was gone, her doctors cautioned there was a possibility it could return within five to seven years.

“It was seven years literally to the month when this small-cell carcinoma showed up in her lung,” Steven Stone said.

“The battle was on and we knew it was grim. We were hoping we could fight long enough that some solution could be found. It wore her down for 10 months. It was quite a battle, it was like Don Quixote. You were fighting a losing battle, but you have to fight the battle nonetheless,” he recalled.

Despite fighting bravely and valiantly through repeated rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, Sherry K. Stone died on June 20, 2009.

But Steven Stone hasn’t stopped fighting.

“Cancer may have taken the love of my life from me and her fighting spirit, but it has not taken the fight out of me. So the fight goes on,” he said. “We may have lost a battle but not a war.”

Victory is simple: to prevent and find a cure for cancer.

“On the day that we meet again I want to say, ‘Honey, the fight you fought we were able to finish it. We won.’ I don’t want another husband to have to go through what I went through, a wife to go through what I went through,” he said.

“I can say, ‘Honey, we beat it before I left.’”

Just days after his wife’s death, he founded the Sherry K. Stone Foundation for a Cure and launched the www.SherryKStonefoundation.org Web site. The site tells his wife’s story and connects readers with a multitude of facts, as well as information about cancer and women’s health. It features several public service announcements available for download.

Steven Stone, his brother, Michael Stone, and Sherry’s three brothers, Kevin Smith, Jerry Smith and Alan Smith, and one of Steven Stone’s colleagues, Phil Sarata, serve on the board of directors, which is guided by Sherry Stone’s spirit.

“All the strength she gave me before — she stays with me still. I feel her every day. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t. It will be like that forever,” Steven Stone said.

“She and I had conversations about it before she died. She joked it would be a great way for her brothers and I to get together for charity golf games,” Steven Stone said with a laugh.

Those games are in the works as are additional fundraisers and education outreach. Last fall, the charity had a fundraiser marking what would have been Sherry Stone’s 62nd birthday and raising $1,500 in a single afternoon.

Steven Stone said the foundation “has not written anybody a check” but is still looking for worthy recipients. The foundation will only donate to researchers and organizations that will not spend it on administrative fees.

“Every penny that comes into this foundation goes where we told people it would go: to research and other assorted issues, like people who have no insurance to pay for treatments,” he said.

Steven Stone said he’s had conversations with St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, where Sherry had treatment, but said, “We’re open to ideas and suggestions because we’re all in this together. There is not a person you know who has not been touched by cancer.”

To donate to the Sherry K. Stone Foundation for a Cure, call Steven Stone at (606) 743-1102 or e-mail skstone5648@yahoo.com. Donations may be mailed to P.O. Box 177, West Liberty, KY 41472. All donations are tax deductible.