CUMMING: Devon Currie, 20, competitive athlete

On the last day of his young life, Devon Currie fulfilled a long-held wish, thanks to a gift from an anonymous neighbor.

Mr. Currie had been battling Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, for nearly two years. On Saturday, he walked out of a motorcycle store with a shiny new Suzuki and rode it 35 miles home. A neighbor in his Deerlake neighborhood in Cumming, who didn’t want to be known, had purchased the bike for him.

“When he got home, he said, ‘Wow, tell me what I have to do —- I’ll do anything to keep this motorcycle,’ ” said his father, David Currie of Cumming. “He said it felt like he didn’t even have cancer.”

Mr. Currie, 20, died that night at his home in Cumming. A memorial service is 2 p.m. today at Perimeter Church in Duluth. McDonald & Son Funeral Home and Crematory is in charge of arrangements.

Mr. Currie was one of those kids who was a natural athlete from an early age, his father said. He was born 9 pounds 10 ounces and kept on growing by leaps and bounds.

“He was always the biggest kid in his class,” his father said.

The younger Currie eventually grew to 6 feet 3 inches and gravitated to sports where his size would be an advantage.

At South Forsyth High School, he focused on basketball, football and track and lettered in all three in his junior and senior years. He enjoyed the competitive aspect of sports and always gave his best effort, his father said.

The younger Currie won a football scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University, where he was a linebacker and also played special teams. He was named most valuable player for special teams, his father said.

At the university, Currie majored in criminal justice. He planned to work as a police officer or as an agent for the FBI or CIA. He settled on that line of work after doing a ride-along with a police officer in Forsyth County, his father said.

“He just loved chasing down bad guys and taking care of bad guys,” the elder Mr. Currie said. “He was competitive. There was an intensity in him.”

In addition to sports, Devon Currie loved river rafting and fishing. After he was diagnosed with cancer, and his father asked him to list his “dream wishes,” he wrote: fishing in Alaska, skydiving, scuba diving and riding a motorcycle.

He wasn’t strong enough to do the first three. But last week, it became clear he would be able to ride a motorcycle and so he worked on becoming certified to ride. He picked up his license Dec. 11, his father said.

Additional survivors include his mother, Mary Currie of Cumming; two brothers, Shane Currie of LaGrange and Mason Currie of Cumming; and his grandparents, Wayne and Dorothy Currie of Elgin, Neb., and Bob and Dorothy Mason of Rio Verde, Ariz.