Theordore Traicoff Jr. was the eldest son of five boys to a Macedonian household. His family was poor and his father worked in the Gary, Indiana steel mills. Ted had little to nothing growing up beyond the responsibility that comes with being the oldest son in an Eastern European family. Ted worked his way through college and earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the business school at Indiana University where he ran cross country. Shortly after graduation he was involved in a multiple vehicle car wreck and had his legs crushed. The doctors told him they recommended amputation and anything else would involve painful recovery over months and years. Ted told them, “If you cut my legs off, I’m going to come back on a skateboard and cut your throat.” Ted endured the agonizing recovery and learned to walk again. He relocated to Kansas City and worked his way up to become Chief Financial Officer of Marlen Research. Theordore was always the man in the family that everyone else came to when they had problems including his friends. Ted was responsible not only for solving his own problems but helping everyone else too. One day one of his employees came to him and cried because she couldn’t afford food that month due to her husband’s illness. Ted bought her groceries for that month so her family wouldn’t starve and told only his immediate family about it because he did it out of the goodness of his heart. Ted Traicoff took no shit from nobody. He taught his daughter who was his only child that no one tells a Traicoff how to live their life. No one dictates to a Traicoff who they are. He treated his daughter like a son his pride and joy he called his gold. He taught her we are the descendants of Alexander The Great, the greatest general of all history. We are not handed things in life; we go out and earn and take and conquer. He told her when you hit rock bottom in life, no one will help you. They will kick you, steal from you, and spit on you, but they will not help you. When that day comes, you get up with your own two feet and save yourself and climb that mountain by yourself, and when everyone comes back wanting credit afterwards, you tell them I am Ted Traicoff’s daughter, and you don’t get what you didn’t earn. When he died, all anyone could do was pity him. He didn’t deserve pity. The man deserved respect and recognition for his hard work, good soul, and sovereign spirit. Maybe if his family had actually given it to him and he felt like the bar didn’t move every time he achieved something, his life wouldn’t have ended tragically on October 1st, 1996. As it is, he deserves a place in Valhalla where true warriors and real men get seen for who they are.