Business, brother suffer a major loss.

• Position: Murray Youmans - Brief Article - Obituary

Scott Youmans has overcome many obstacles to build Morrisville-based custom-apparel maker Cotton Unlimited Inc. The result is $8.5 million in 1999 revenues, accounts with corporate heavy-weights such as BellSouth Corp., a growing importing business -- and a nod last fall as one of three runners-up in BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA's Small Business of the Year competition. But in December, the athletic 29-year-old, who once played defensive tackle for Duke, faced his biggest personal and professional challenge. His brother and business partner, Murray, died of cancer. He was 35.

The Youmans lost both parents to cancer before Murray set off on a football scholarship to Duke, where he also played defensive tackle. Scott, then in middle school, lived with a series of foster parents to be close to him. "He's been like a dad to me," Scott said in an interview last fall.

In 1998, when Murray learned he had colon cancer, the business, started in 1993 by Scott, began to falter. Scott returned to the Triangle from Charlotte, where he had been heading up sales, to run daily operations in Murray's stead. Sales took a hit, and the brothers considered closing shop.

But with surgery and nine months of chemotherapy, Murray fought his cancer into remission and returned to work in June 1998. Over the next 12 months, the brothers did $4...