When told late last year he had inoperable Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, Ron Long’s mind immediately flashed forward to June 8, 2013.

He has three daughters, and has had the “privilege” to walk two of them — Jennifer, 48, and Holly, 36, — down the aisle on their wedding day. His middle daughter, Kasey Long, 37, whom is named in honor of her father’s favorite NFL team, the Kansas City Chiefs, is getting married this spring in Dallas.

Ron and Brenda Long have a calendar that hangs in their Middletown home. There is a circle around June 8.

“I’ve got to be there,” Long said Saturday after being honored at the Madison High School girls basketball game. “I pray that He allows me to live that long. After that … well, it won’t matter.”

Ron Long, 64, worked at Armco for 20 years, then received his bachelor’ degree from Miami University and began his second career as a teacher and coach in the Madison district. He worked there for 20 years, retiring in 2006.

On Saturday, with several of his Middletown High School Class of 1964 classmates in the stands, and some of the girls he had in gym and health class playing for the Mohawks, Long was presented a basketball autographed by the boys and girls basketball teams.

When Long was introduced, everyone in the fieldhouse — Mohawk and Dixie fans alike — gave him a lengthy standing ovation. Tears streamed down the faces of several players.

John Rossi, the girls basketball coach, lost his father, John “Butch” Rossi, a Fenwick High School legend, to pancreatic cancer seven years ago. He called the ceremony for Long “a special day for a special person.”

Earlier, Ron and Brenda Long, high school sweethearts who have been married for more than 48 years, talked about their walk together with cancer.

Brenda Long, who retired in 2007 as director of human resources in the Middletown City School District, said her husband’s last medical check-up was positive. He’s taking chemotherapy, and after losing 13 pounds, his appetite has returned, she said. His doctor told him to keep “fighting” the cancer so Long wore a boxing glove to a recent appointment.

“I can’t lay around and just let it eat me,” he said. “I can’t give up. I’m going after this cancer with all I got left.”

If battling cancer wasn’t enough, there was a serious fire at their Middletown home in October. The fire was ruled an arson and it severely damaged the back of their two-story home. When Brenda tried to call 911, the phone lines were down, and her husband, who just had a medicine port put in his chest, grabbed the garden hose and fought the fire until fire fighters arrived.

“It’s not been a good period of time,” Ron Long said.

But right now, only June 8 matters.