To distract his mind from the pain and fill the empty hours, he learned to make fly rods. He made them so well that he was able to sell them. Through a mutual friend, he was introduced to Vice President Dick Cheney, a Wyoming native, and wound up giving him one of his handmade fly rods. Cheney liked it so well that he bought one for President Bush as a Christmas present.

There was another favorite diversion: Helping other people with problems. "After we visited the Mayo Clinic, he realized there were thousands of people who, due to no fault of their own, faced catastrophic situations beyond their control," says Terryl. "He wanted to help those people."

He started the David Draney Foundation that raised money for victims of 9/11. He brought a family who had lost a husband/father all the way from New York to tiny Afton, Wyo., for an auction. Enlisting the help of celebrity athletes (Star Valley's Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner was among them), they raised $25,000 for these total strangers, handed a check to them and sent them home. The auction has become an annual event.

"He bent over backward to help others," says Terryl. "I've seen him lying there in that bed making those fishing rods when he could hardly hold his head up, but he wanted to make it for somebody as a gift. He tried to do anything he could to be generous."

Says Robison, "Most of my experience with him was when he was so focused on becoming successful, and then this happened and he looked outward and he helped so many people. The people up there love him."

He spoke frequently at Mormon firesides, graduation ceremonies, to various youth groups and church meetings. He called people in trouble. One man lost his wife in a car accident; the next day he got a call from Draney asking if there was anything he could do. The man was moved. "He's dying of cancer and he's asking me if he can help me," he told Carol.

"He had a tremendous influence in the valley the last few years because of the way he handled the situation," says Kevin Hyde, Draney's high school track coach. "People knew what he was going through. He was a nice athlete, but it was more about what he became because of how he handled the disease."

Through most of the ordeal, the Draneys remained positive and remarkably humorous about it all. Draney liked to joke that he had always wanted to be on TV and in newspapers — but "not as a one-legged man." He boasted that he was the "best one-legged fly fisherman in America." When his leg was amputated, he told doctors, "I want it. I paid for it. I'm going to freeze-dry it and make a lamp out of it."