To Jim Detwiler, climbing Mount Everest was a step toward finding a cure for his deadly disease

Jim Detwiler believes he can move mountains. That’s not only a metaphor about his life – Detwiler returned home Sunday night from climbing Mount Everest. The deputy superintendent of Boone County Schools lives by those words as he struggles with a disease for which there is no cure. “He’s an individual that will climb the highest mountain to do something great for everyone,” said Susan Pastor-Richard, one of Detwiler’s many friends who gave him a surprise greeting home at the airport Sunday night. Detwiler didn’t climb Mt. Everest because it was on his Bucket List. He did it specifically to raise money for research for a cure for multiple myeloma. He came down with the form of blood cancer In 2016.