Pete Palmere is not unaccustomed to challenges.

As a child, when his family vacationed at the beach, instead of building the traditional sandcastle, Pete opted to create cities, historic cities that captured his imagination.

By fourth grade he was playing the cello, then became a gifted musician, playing in musical ensembles in his hometown of Davis and as a member of the Davis High School Orchestra and Sacramento Youth Symphony.

Then in March 2005, Palmere was diagnosed with leukemia.

“It came out of the blue,” said Carrie Pilon, a close friend of the Palmere family and member of St. James Parish in Davis. “Pete was going about his life and suddenly everything turned over.”

During the first eight months after his diagnosis, six were spent in the hospital receiving intensive chemotherapy followed by recovery periods during which Palmere experienced bacterial and fungal infections.

A committed student, Palmere, a junior at Davis High, kept up with his studies in accelerated classes using a laptop computer.

In February, the family learned that chemotherapy had not been successful and were told by his doctors at Kaiser Permanente the only real option was a bone marrow transplant.

The search for a donor, complicated by the fact that there was no family match, has required extending the hunt to the National Marrow Donor Program.

Meanwhile Palmere is continuing his periodic chemotherapy treatments.

Pilon said support for the Palmere family within the Davis community has been “incredible.”

Friends stop by to drop off dinner and drive family members to the hospital. “It’s a community of friends who have come together,” she said.

One of those friends is Marianne Kirkland.

Kirkland met the Palmere family several years ago when she and Pete’s father, Anthony Palmere, were singing in the Newman Center choir and Pete’s mother, Terry Palmere, played the organ.

“The whole choir has watched Pete and his brother Mark grow up,” Kirkland said. “Pete is somewhere between a son and a little brother in my heart.”

She describes Pete as “a kind of shy guy…but competitive,” a gentle spirit who is “crazy about history and otters.”

An ecumenical grassroots effort launched a bone marrow donor registry drive for Pete Palmere at Davis Community Church in June, and a Davis High School orchestra concert raised funds to support testing for individual donors.

Julie Utz, pastoral care coordinator at St. James Parish, said an annual blood drive to be held at St. James Memorial Center from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 9 will include bone marrow donor testing.

Potential donors must be between the ages of 18 and 60.

“We’re thrilled to be a part of this effort to help Pete,” said Utz, adding that the Palmere family had previously been active members of St. James. “They are a lovely family and many of our parishioners are very close to them.”

Anthony Palmere explained that an added complexity in locating a bone marrow match for Pete is the fact that while Caucasians are well represented in the National Marrow Donor registry, other ethnicities are not.

Pete is half Italian, a quarter Polish, with some Irish and other European ancestry.

The registry drive effort to reach out to a diversity of people could potentially increase the chances of finding a match for Pete Palmere and others in need of a bone marrow transplant.

“It is really wonderful the way everyone has come together and amazing how they have taken Pete into their hearts,” Anthony Palmere said. “It’s an example of what can happen with a small town effort.”

For more information on the National Marrow Donor Program, call 1-800-MARROW-2 or visit the National Marrow Donor Web site at www.marrow.org.

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