Somewhere in Thor Swanson's home in Sioux City, Iowa is an autographed photo of Arthur Ashe, the late tennis great who was is probably more remembered for championing humanitarian causes than for winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

It's a signature that all but glows in the dark for Swanson to this day.

When Ashe appeared at a tennis exhibition at UW-Parkside in 1976, a then 11-year-old Swanson met him and went home that night with his prized photo. Judging from how Swanson has lived his life, he went home with so much more than that.

"One event that would later impact my life was meeting Arthur Ashe," Swanson said.

Like Ashe, he was blessed with the ability to play tennis, becoming one of the elite high school players in the state while at Prairie in the early 1980s. And like Ashe, he understood that what truly measures the quality of a man's life is the difference he makes with mankind, not within the realm of sports.

Swanson, son of longtime Prairie tennis coach Harold Swanson, was especially impassioned by such a conviction during the mid 1980s, when he was coming of age as an adult during the explosion of the world-wide AIDS epidemic. Instead of making short-sighted judgments, as so many others were, Swanson was being swayed by a career in either medicine or ministry as a student at St. Olaf in Minnesota.

He would ultimately choose both.

"For a Bioethics class in January 1986," Swanson said, "I wrote a paper arguing that if Jesus was alive today, he would be ministering to the AIDS victims, not judging them and saying, 'This was God's judgment against

homosexuals,' as some were."

Swanson backed his convictions with more than just idealistic words that received a grade from his college professor. He entered the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago after graduating from St. Olaf and went on to serve as associate pastor of Valley Evangelical Covenant Church in Stillman Valley, Ill.

"In April 1991, at age 25 and off in my internship year. I was serving a Lutheran church in Joliet, Ill.," he said. "At that time, those dying of AIDS in the U.S. were often abandoned by family and went to die at AIDS halfway houses. There was such a halfway house in Joliet and when someone called asking a pastor from our church to do a chapel service, my supervisor volunteered me.

"When I offered prayer and anointing, every single dying AIDS patient came up for prayer and anointing - almost all with tears of joy in their eyes. This was also around the time Arthur Ashe was dying of AIDS.

"As I would go on to medical school and become an AIDS physician, God was obviously weaving a mosaic of AIDS, compassion and God's love into my life."

Swanson went on to earn a medical degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1997. And since then, he has been putting both educations to use to fulfill his life's motto of, "As we go through life, let us do as much good as we can for we pass this way but once."

The was especially underscored when Swanson relocated his wife and three daughters to Kenya from January 2006 until June 2007. Swanson was stationed at AIC-Kijabe Hospital, where he served as as family practice and HIV educator.

"We actively treated AIDS patients and did a lot with training Kenyans in treating HIV patients," Swanson said. "On the side, I also did a fair amount of preaching at local African churches."

Swanson has since returned to Sioux City, where he carries on his work in ministry and medicine. Playing tennis has become more of a chore since a herniated disc he suffered in Africa has left him with permanent sciatic neuropathy in his left foot, but he can live with that.

Tennis hasn't been his identity for years. He has so much more to live and work for than mastering the art of hitting a tennis ball, thanks to the convictions he followed.

"I love the fact I am now a medical educator," he said. "I love the chance to mentor and teach medical students, interns and family practice residents. And I still see HIV patients and love it.

"I firmly believe that my HIV career is now related to Arthur Ashe, that halfway house in Joliet and Africa," Swanson said. "I love my life now."