Dr. William Neches is standing in the hills of Zelienople with his legacy. After 33 years of pediatric heart care and hundreds of patients, the Children's Hospital Heart Camp is an achievement that will stand long after he is gone.

	Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Dr. William Neches, a cardiologist at Children's Hospital, talks to Carlie Kerklo, 11, of Ligonier, yesterday as his wife, Ellen, looks on at the hospital's annual Heart Camp at Camp Kon-O-Kwee. Click photo for larger image.

About 130 campers gathered with Neches at the camp, which covers 500 acres of Camp Kon-O-Kwee, for a Thursday ceremony honoring the heart doctor, who was instrumental in the camp's founding.

Neches who is retiring, established the weeklong camp to show children with heart disorders that they are capable of living lives without caution or fear.

Keith McIntyre is a testament to what Neches leaves behind. Hard to imagine is the image of McIntyre as a newborn, a "blue baby" struggling to survive, his skin a pale aqua because of one large hole in the lower chambers of his heart and a blockage of his pulmonary artery.

McIntyre's life span is a miracle. Babies born with his condition are supposed to live a maximum of three months. He is 46. Much of that life , he says, has been because of Neches.

"When I was born, it was survival of the fittest," said McIntyre, director of the camp.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Neches idolized pediatricians. He would bike down to the corner of his block to watch as workers built Maimonides Medical Center.

After graduating from Syracuse University, he went to medical school at the State University of New York Downstate and to a residency at the University of Texas Children's Hospital in the late 1960s.

He would take his first and final job in 1972, when he moved to become a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Over the ensuing three decades, there were countless 12- to 14-hour days. Hundreds of families. Lives saved and children lost.

Yet his greatest accomplishment, he says, is the 15-year-old camp. Watching the confused look on many of his patient's faces, many too young to have such serious thoughts, propelled Neches to search for some way to help. Faces that asked "Why does this happen to me?" had to have an answer, he said.

That answer would come from children just like them. Neches would raise money along with the Pittsburgh Heart Association to start the first session of a summer camp dedicated solely to the children affected by heart failure.

"They begin to realize they are not alone," said Neches.

The camp's first class only had 30 campers . Now, more than 130 children regularly return every summer. The counselors are former campers.

Eric Leslie, 25, of Mt. Lebanon, was a part of that first class of campers in 1991 and is now a counselor.

Leslie was born with Shone's Syndrome, which involves multiple abnormalities in the left side of the heart. The valves and passageways are often too small or blocked. These problems are magnified at birth. Leslie was 3 when he met Neches.

And at a dinner celebration with all the campers, 23 former campers turned counselors stood behind Neches. All of them a tribute to the doctor's pediatric legacy. Before they could all walk away, Neches grabbed Leslie, whispered into his ear his latest exam results, smiled and gave his former patient a gentle brush across his cheek.