Swab to Save a Life: Mines Student Athletes Lead Community Donor Drive
A single cheek swab and a stranger’s decision to say ‘yes’ can mean the difference between life and death.
David Burnett, a 2005 South Dakota Mines alumnus, is living proof.
In July 2021, at only 39 years old, the young father of two boys was diagnosed with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, a type of cancer most commonly seen in older patients.
“It may sound cliché, but I am alive today because someone took the small action to do a cheek swab,” David said.
Early in his diagnosis, David's oncologist delivered sobering news. Without a bone
marrow transplant, he likely only had two to three years to live. At the time, his
son, Arney, was one, and his younger son, Flynn, was two months old.
Inspired by stories like David’s, the Hardrocker Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) is leading a campus and community-wide effort to help give others that same second chance.
SAAC has partnered with Earl Young’s Team, a national organization dedicated to raising awareness and registering blood stem cell and bone marrow donors, to hold a swab drive on Thursday, Jan. 29. The drive will take place during the Hardrocker women’s and men’s basketball games beginning at 5 p.m. in the King Center, with an additional registration site open earlier in the day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the university’s Devereaux Library.
“It is really important for SAAC to reach out beyond campus and into the community,” said Alana Howard, a senior chemical engineering major and SAAC president. “We’re the bridge between students and administration, but we also have a responsibility to serve others. This is one way we can make a real impact.”
Howard and other student athletes connected with Earl Young’s Team during last summer’s Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) retreat, where the organization challenged conference schools to host drives during the academic year.
“Our work focuses on hosting swab drives on college campuses because younger donors provide the best patient outcomes,” said Jeanie Smith, area manager for the organization. “With Earl’s strong connection to track and field, it's a natural fit with athletics.”
Earl Young is a 1960 Olympic gold medalist for Team USA who later developed leukemia. A blood stem transplant from an unrelated woman in Germany saved his life.
“We often work with SAACs at schools across the country, but last summer, the RMAC invited me to speak at their summer leadership conference,” Smith said. “There, I was introduced to some amazing student athletes, including Alana Howard. She and others were extremely interested in hosting a drive.”
This is not the first time the Hardrockers have stepped up. In 2023, the students
hosted two similar events with the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), formerly known as Be the Match, registering more than 420 donors, a handful of
whom ultimately donated to save a life, including current Hardrocker football player
Griffin Taylor, a sophomore mechanical engineering major.
“I decided to join the donor registry after talking with one of my teammates, Caleb Franklin, who was helping promote the campus donor event in 2023,” Taylor said, “He explained what the registry was, why it mattered, and how simple it was to potentially make a huge difference.”
When Taylor received the call that he was a match, he was nervous yet excited. “As a college athlete, I knew the donation process would be a small challenge for me, especially compared to the life-changing impact it could have for the recipient.”
This is why programs like NMDP and Earl Young’s Team hold a special meaning for David and his family.
“We first tried to find a match within his family, which was unsuccessful, and so we had to turn to NMDP to use the bone marrow registry in hopes of finding an unrelated donor,” said Cori Burnett, David’s wife and fellow Hardrocker. The two married in October of 2005 during their final semester on campus. “We learned so much in the process, like there are over 41 million potential donors in the world, and after we went through the process, we learned there were only two potential matches for David. In our case, it only took one, and we are so grateful to Michael for his gift of life.”
Anyone aged 18 to 55 in good health is eligible to join the registry, Smith said. At the swab drive, SAAC volunteers will guide participants through a simple 10-minute process that includes answering some questions and swabbing the inside of their mouths.
For David, his donor joined the registry by chance, randomly meeting someone at work who encouraged him to sign up.
“Luckily for me, he made the choice to get swabbed and a few years later was contacted to become my donor,” David said. "For individuals like me that don’t have matched family members, it really is the luck of the draw.”
This week marks the fourth anniversary of David’s bone marrow transplant, and the day he was given a new future.
“Last year, I got to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary with my wife. I got to see my two sons’ birthdays and the first days
of school. We celebrated holidays together and took a family vacation to Ireland. All the other ‘little things’ in life that, before my diagnosis, I would probably have taken for granted, I got to do because someone took a small action to do a cheek swab.”
Howard has a goal of adding up to 300 new donors to the registry.
Taylor will be on the frontlines helping make that happen.
“I hope to do the same as my teammate did for me, just raise awareness,” he said. “If people understood how easy it is to join the registry, more lives could be saved in the future.”
If you can’t make the event and want to register, anyone can visit Earl Young’s Team website to order a free at-home swab kit or find another nearby swab drive.