Tim Hurttgam, who passed away last October, was honored by Western Michigan University with a posthumous degree April 26.

Yet this day was bittersweet for the Hurttgams. Tim was not able to attend the ceremony. In October 2007, Tim died following complications that arose when treating his more than 2-year long battle with cancer. He was 22 years old.

His parents, however, still found themselves at the commencement ceremony on the campus of Western Michigan University, where a posthumous degree was awarded to Tim on April 26.

Tim’s father, Dale Hurttgam, said his son was always a strong student. He grew up in Macomb Township and graduated from Lutheran High School North with good grades. But it was in his later school years, as he prepared for college, where Dale Hurttgam said his son truly developed a passion for learning.

“He was a good student all the way through, but I think something happened to him that senior year that really lit a spark in him,” said Dale Hurttgam. “I think that when he decided to get everything ready and prepared for college, he really developed a thirst for knowledge.”

Tim went to WMU and immediately immersed himself in activism, politics and the pursuit of knowledge. Tim’s mother, Sue Hurttgam, said she would talk to other parents whose children were at college with Tim and she was stunned by the things they were saying about her normally shy son.

“During his first few years, we would hear from so many people that he was such an inspiration, that they were learning so much from him. They said he just opened up their eyes and taught them so much,” Sue Hurttgam said. “I was amazed at how many people were saying this. This was just my quiet little boy; he was never like this at home.”

It was during this time that Tim also became involved in student politics, a development that stunned Dale Hurttgam.

“He was never really active in student government in high school, but one of the first things he did when he went to college was run for the student board of his dorms,” he said. “He also began going to every meeting of the school’s Board of Trustees. When we were at the commencements, there was one of the trustees that had met Tim and he said he saw him at several trustees meetings.”

According to his parents, Tim threw himself into both his studies and his causes, aligning himself with the Green Party, having private meetings with the university’s president, and encouraging others to get involved and take the initiative in changing the world. One of his strongest passions, his parents said, was fighting for a living wage for the campus workers, whose positions were in jeopardy when the university decided to privatize. The issue, the Hurttgams said, is still at the forefront at WMU today.

“During the time before the commencements, one of the local television stations was replaying the issues surrounding the living wage and they replayed an interview they did with Tim,” said Dale Hurttgam. “A copy was given to us at graduation so we could always remember the things he was involved with.”

It was during March of Tim’s sophomore year when his parents said he noticed what he thought was a small cut on his tongue. He inquired about it during a dentist’s visit, but was told it would probably heal on its own. Tim thought nothing else of it and returned to school; during spring of the following year, he found it was cancer. A week later he was having his first surgery. Still, the time off for treatment did not deter him from his studies.

“He returned to campus with just three weeks left and had to make up everything and still finished with straight-A’s,” Dale Hurttgam said. “That semester he was also named senator of the year for the school.”

That summer, Tim began working for Clean Water Action and canvassing around the neighborhood for political causes. Yet as the summer progressed, he noticed a lump on his neck; the cancer had returned. In August 2005 he had his second surgery, which required him to take some time off of school, although he returned in January 2006 and took part in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life on the WMU campus that year.

“That spring he participated in Relay for Life and he was the top student fund-raiser at the event. He got up and read a page he had written about how great it felt that he had been cured, and how happy he was about it,” said Dale Hurttgam. “What was going on, though, that we didn’t know at the time, was that the cancer was coming back again.”

The Hurttgams talked to officials at the Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit, who recommended a surgery that would have removed Tim’s tongue and larynx, rendering him unable to speak again. The family conferred with doctors at the University of Michigan and in Houston for second and third opinions, and decided to instead have Tim use chemotherapy to treat it.

“The chemotherapy progressed and it worked pretty effectively for about six months,” said Dale Hurttgam. “My wife was taking him back and forth from home to school. He’d go to school for three days and then come home for treatment for three or four days.”

In January 2007 it was discovered that the chemotherapy treatments were no longer effective and an experimental treatment was put into place at Karmanos. It was complications from that treatment that caused Tim’s death 10 months later.

“It worked like gangbusters at first. The problem was it worked too well,” said Dale Hurttgam. “His body couldn’t work fast enough to repair the damage that was being done from the tumors disappearing.”

Yet Tim still persisted in his passions. In January 2007 he took a trip to Washington, D.C., to protest the war.

Earlier this month, at the luminary ceremony during the WMU Relay for Life, Dale Hurttgam honored his son’s persistence.

“During the time that he was ill and fighting, we could have kept him home,” he said. “But he chose to get involved and fight. He was able to live his life to the fullest. It was such a passion with him - to change things - that even though he was sick, he just wanted to be able to carry them out.”

Even though he remained passionate about activism and politics, Sue Hurttgam said her son never pushed his beliefs onto others or treated people with any disrespect.

“I do know that if I did not agree with him on a certain issue, he could always at least make me understand why the other side thought that way,” she said. “That’s something he taught me was that you have to understand how others are thinking.”

Dale Hurttgam said he has been touched to see how many fellow students, teachers and friends have approached him at commencements or at events like the Relay for Life to tell them about how his son touched their lives. He said he wants to ensure that his son is not forgotten and plans on compiling a book of Tim’s writings to pass along his message.

“That’s one thing we want, is for people to know how passionate he was about changing the world, so that they can also be,” he said. “That’s one thing I’m noticing lately is that a lot of people are using the same phrases Tim used. It’s starting to be a much more important thing now.”