Life's challenges can be overwhelming at times, but don't tell that to Jeff Keith. The longtime Fairfield resident is a man of remarkable courage and resolve – perhaps not always in that order.

At 12, he suffered a broken right knee while playing youth hockey at the Wonderland of Ice in Bridgeport. "Somebody knocked me into the boards," he recalled. A biopsy revealed a malignant tumor on his knee, and doctors at St. Vincent's Medical Center amputated his right leg above the knee – on Christmas Eve.

There were few pity parties in the household of Donna and the late ...