In 2010, the community of Lynnwood Washington and the Meadowdale High School were devastated to learn that one of their students had succumbed to the cancer she had fought so long. In times of crisis, people will band together to try to make sense of something so tragic. They decided to honor Ashley and her fight with a new school scoreboard.
Ashley Aven was on the softball team at Meadowdale High School. She played the game she loved and was a normal teenager. With very few symptoms, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia which is an aggressive and rare disease. Ashley was a fighter, spending almost six months in Children’s Hospital undergoing chemotherapy in preparation for bone marrow transplant. The cancer was more resilient but Ashley vowed that “the cancer doesn’t have me”. The physicians had given her only two months, but she continued to live into nine months. The softball community of Lynnwood became a supporting factor for Ashley and her family, holding fundraisers for the expenses. Jay Buhner, former Mariner player, became one of Ashley’s friends and made arrangements for her to throw the coveted first pitch at one of the Mariner games.
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