The Alzheimer’s Association announced Thursday that Dick and Nancy Knowlton are donating $500,000 to the Colorado Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association to bolster the Association’s search for a cure.

“Alzheimer’s is a wicked disease,” said Nancy in a press release. “We’d do anything to help find, through research, a way to do away with it completely. I hope everybody steps up to the plate. I don’t think of anything better than to be a part of getting rid of this awful disease.”

Dick is currently living in the advance stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

For the Knowlton family this is just another step in the fight against the disease and they are happy to be taking a leadership role in that struggle.

“Dad always taught us to do what is right, and he led by example,” said Julie Wham, one of the Knowlton’s five children and a member of the Colorado board of the Alzheimer’s Association. “I know he is pleased that through this gift, he and my mother are investing in the Alzheimer’s Association’s efforts. I’m banking on a cure, for all of us. Alzheimer’s is too rampant … too pervasive.”