A Christmas gift that lasts.

• Author: SCHWAB, ROBERT
• Position: Brief Article

IT took him a year, but Zee Ferrufino, one of the founding board members of the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, got hold of a radio station this October. He expects to return the Spanish-language station, KBNO ("Que Bueno"), to the air by the of this month.

Just time to remind his listeners about the 10th annual Robby's Friends Christmas party for sick kids from Children's Hospital.

Before he died in 1989, Robby Ferrufino, who was 10 then, gave away many of the gifts that people, including his father, brought to him at Children's, where he was being treated for cancer. Zee Ferrufino believes to this day that Robby gave away a final gift even after his death.

The story goes like this: The day Robby died, Ferrufino left instructions at Denver Fine Furniture, the store that had launched his business career and the desire to own a radio station, that no one should disturb him and his family while they mourned and made funeral arrangements for his son.

Nevertheless, employees at the store called. A strange thing had happened. A white dove had flown in the front door of the store, and perched itself on the cash register, a favorite place where Robby liked to help his father, cashing out customers. Robby liked talking with people there.

The store clerks shooed the bird out the back once, but he flew back inside the next time the front door was opened. By closing time, Ferrufino's manager was afraid to close up for fear the bird would trip security alarms. Ferrufino said he finally went to the store, and the bird flew into his arms. He put it in a box and took it home. On the day of Robby's funeral, he released the dove outside the family home and it flew in spirals up, up and up, until it disappeared. Ferrufino says...