Celebrate William Priest's Life and Legacy

Our father, William Edward Priest, 84, a devout athlete and sports fanatic was diagnosed with Aortic Stenosis just 8 months ago. On November 19, while shopping, he experienced a cardiac event. The doctors had said he had this latent disease his entire life. Unfortunately, Bill was unaware of this, as most people experience no symptoms in their earlier years and even throughout their life. He looked and felt healthy daily. I mean, everyone slows down as they get older, right? He was a retired jock. His childhood dream was to be a famous baseball player and so he started early by playing in school and quickly rose to the top of his class. After school, Bill moved to Aurora, Illinois and played in the minor leagues with the opportunity to go pro, the same opportunity that his father had before him. He ended up foregoing his baseball dream due to having a young family. Fortunately, at 76 years old, he was able to witness his coveted Chicago Cubs win the World Series, another lifelong dream for Bill.

13% of people, in America, 75 yrs or older have Aortic Stenosis. The goal is to detect this condition early and treat it accordingly. Our goal is to build awareness to give people a fighting chance that have this valve disease by getting tested and taking action.

Only next to God and baseball was Bill’s desire to take care of his family and the people he loved. Those that knew our father knew that among all his other beautiful traits, he loved to help people in need. He always told us “I want to leave this life with nothing and help people while I’m still here”. He did just that. He helped many people and because of this, in the end, he had very little for himself. This GoFundMe page is designed to ask for your donation to not only raise money to conduct a Celebration of Life Event to honor this amazing man, but also to be able to donate to Aortic Hope of Maryland, since 2016, a visionary charity that helps to spread hope, create awareness, and provide support to patients, survivors, and caregivers during the recovery and management of aortic disease. Learn more about Aortic Stenosis here...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R5kxwdXzCc. Thank you for your donation!