On June 25, our President Mark Verma lost his valiant battle with cancer. Mark leaves behind thousands of friends – from his birthplace of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to the LSU campus where he worked his way through college, across the southwestern U.S. in his technology sales career, in bars and clubs where he enjoyed his love of heavy metal music and managed bands, on the airwaves where his voice was known to the listeners of KEGL on the Russ Martin Show, and at Paws in the City where his abundant heart was known to hundreds of dogs he worked to rehome.
If you met Mark once, you gained a lifelong friend. If you went anywhere with Mark, you realized that he was known everywhere because his capacity to form and sustain friendships was boundless. He was energetic, joyful, funny, compassionate, sensitive, mannerly, gentle and kind. As any of the many people and dogs who met him will tell you, “He was the nicest guy.”
Mark began volunteering for PITC in 2008, joined the board in 2012 and became president in 2014. Mark would give any amount of time, go anywhere and do anything to change the fate of an abandoned pet. With the help of his beloved dog Buddy, who preceded him in death in 2020, Mark also fostered and trained many Paws rescue dogs. For years, not a week went by when Mark was not on the road somewhere in DFW with a dog in his car, on the way to a radio appearance, a play date or an adoption event.
Mark leaves behind a loving family in Louisiana and thousands of friends who will never forget his beaming face, his heroic heart and how he enriched our lives.
