OXFORD - The lives of Oxford Academy graduates Mark Samson and Susan Nelson were cut way too short. Their legacies, however, will live on for generations to come thanks to the inaugural Susan Nelson and Mark Samson Memorial Golf Tournament, slated for Saturday, July 6 at Bluestone Golf Course.

The tournament will act as a fundraiser for the Dollars for Scholars scholarship funds established in Samson's and Nelson's names, said Melissa Chrystie, daughter of Nelson.

"My mom passed away in March, and some of her high school friends set up a scholarship fund," Chrystie said. "She just loved sports and so did Mark, so we thought a golf tournament was an excellent way to raise money."

Nelson was an outstanding three-sport athlete at Oxford Academy playing on the school's first girls' basketball sectional championship team. A member of the class of '78, she was also her class's salutatorian.

Samson graduated just a year after Nelson. A fine athlete in his own right, he was cut down by cancer in the mid 1990s at the age of 34.