Terminally ill Medical Lake High School alum Owen Pitts dies after cancer battle

Medical Lake resident Owen Pitts, who garnered widespread community support as he battled cancer, died Tuesday. He was 21.

Diagnosed with leukemia at age 5, Owen received radiation and chemotherapy for three years. The treatment was successful, but he had a strong, abnormal reaction to the radiation, leaving him with hearing loss and an IQ drop, according to his mother, Rachel Pitts.

Last September, a school nurse noticed something was not right with Owen. Throbbing migraines had become a regular occurrence, but his treatment at a young age also numbed his pain tolerance, in addition to the radiation effects. A subsequent MRI revealed tumors clinging to his brain.

Owen’s story was widely shared last December as he participated in a ceremonious graduation and varsity basketball game at his alma mater, Medical Lake High School. The evening marked the final milestones in his high-school career marred by his battle with cancer.

Coach Brett Ward put him in the starting lineup, and as soon as he scored a basket, Owen’s parents dressed him in his cap and gown, and school officials gave him an honorary diploma.

In an interview with The Spokesman-Review days before the event, Owen and his mother shared their joy and appreciation for the community’s support.

“I don’t really know how to describe it,” Owen said at the time, his half-smile growing thinking of the game. “It feels special.”

“He gets that smile when he talks and thinks about it,” Rachel Pitts said. “Every time.”

In a written statement provided Tuesday, Rachel Pitts said it was hard to put into words the many memories the family will carry forward, the inspiration her son was and “how strong he fought for so long.”

“The smile he always had on his face and how he made friends easily wherever he went. His teachers described him as a light in any classroom and how he brought so much joy to all the other classmates every day,” Rachel Pitts wrote.

“He was such an easygoing kid and I’m just blessed to have called him son for his very short 21 years of life,” she added. “He was truly a gentle soul that was always wanting and seeking the good for others.”

Ward announced Owen’s death on a social media post, in which Ward said the young man served as an inspiration to the “entire community, with his spirit and fight.”

On Tuesday, Ward called that evening ceremony the highlight of his 25-year coaching career. Owen had a tremendous impact on the team, the community and Ward , the coach said.

“To see a kid go through the things that he was going through, and keep the perspective that he had, and the hard work that he had, and just the joy for life that he had, was such a learning experience for everybody, myself included,” Ward said. “It was an eye-opening thing: ‘Oh this is how you should approach these things in life.’

“I’m sure I’ve learned more from Owen than he ever did from me.”

Ward has had all three of the Pitts sons in class, and said his thoughts and prayers are with the family. The team will be competing in a district championship game against Lakeside High School Tuesday evening, and Ward said he intends to make sure a moment of silence prefaces the game.

“To continue to just make him be part of what we do on a daily basis, just like we have and we’ll continue to do,” Ward said.

Unbeknown to his family or his original team of doctors, Owen possessed some rare genes believed to have played a role in his health struggles. The genes gave him a predisposition to radiation sensitivity and cancer recurrence, and the treatment for his leukemia early in life may have contributed to the growth of the tumors discovered more than a decade later.

In his early life, Owen lived with his family on Spokane’s South Hill, attending Hamblen Elementary. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his family moved to a small acreage in Medical Lake where they could live together with his aging grandparents.

He started as a freshman at Medical Lake High School at the age of 17. His mother said the small town and school community enveloped her family in support; it was “exactly where we needed to be,” she said in December.

Owen was drawn to all kinds of sports while at school, playing high school basketball and earning himself state medals in the ambulatory division of track and field. He always wanted to join the swim team, he said in December.

Owen’s family cataloged much of his life in scrapbooks full of photos documenting milestones passed in hospital rooms, like birthdays, meeting superheroes and getting his braces removed. Pages are also filled with family photos on road trips across the country, vacationing at Disney World, Sea World and, most recently, sitting front row at a Kansas City Chiefs game, Owen’s favorite team.

In his final months, the family pulled Owen out of school to focus on his care, and to achieve a few more milestones, like attending the NFL game, spending Christmas with his family and celebrating a birthday shortly before his passing.

Owen and his mom told The Spokesman-Review they took each day as it came, thankful for additional time spent together, knowing nothing is a guarantee. Eternally on the sunny side, Rachel Pitts said then that she’s a “glass-half-full kind of person,” and while she cries for her son, she also thinks of the 15 years they had together after he beat leukemia as a child.

“Life is very short anyway,” Rachel Pitts said in December. “This has just really emphasized that, I think. Just like, what’s important, what’s truly important, and really to let the small things go and just enjoy people and family and be the kindest you can be.”