BB Ingle speaks on his battle with cancer, the origin of his legendary parties

You've probably heard of the name BB Ingle around the Coachella Valley or have even attended his legendary parties over the past 30 years.

News Channel 3 sat down with Ingle to hear how these parties got started and he also shares with us some of the personal health struggles he's been dealing with behind the scenes.

"Like the Tim McGraw song says, 'live like you were dying' and live every moment like it's your last," Ingle told News Channel 3.

The song lyric is now an anthem for the well-known party promoter who continues to live life to the fullest despite news of his prostate cancer returning.

"First round of chemo last week and it did get rid of all the pain and now I'm able to function more," Ingle said.

He was first diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer five years ago. It went dormant for a while but then three months ago it came back.

One of Ingle's longtime friends, Mike Petrucelli remembers when Ingle first told him the news.

"He was actually over at my house four or five years ago when he mentioned something wasn't right," Petrucelli said.

But the man who inspires others to enjoy life and never miss a party isn't letting his battle for cancer stop him from doing the same.

"Keep the party going!" he said. "We're having the 36th Annual St. Patrick's reunion party on March 14 at Big Rock Pub," he added.

"I think because of his faith he felt pretty strong that he could beat it and I was with him on that," Petrucelli said.

Petrucelli like so many others have personal stories and memories with Ingle at his parties.

"His approach was, 'you look like a cool guy and where are you from?' and I said, "I just moved here,' and he said, 'that's great because I host parties. I'm the biggest promoter in the Coachella Valley.'" Petrucelli said.

News Channel 3 asked Ingle how these parties got started.

"36 years ago I was part of a traveling team for T.G.I. Friday's restaurants," he said.

He came to the desert to open another restaurant but wanted to stay because of our beautiful weather.

"The weather was so nice I said maybe we should stay around here for a little while," Ingle said.

He decided to open his own Irish sports bar called "BB O'Briens" in Palm Desert.

"We had a big legendary St. Patrick's Day party in the parking lot," he said.

That was the party that started it all. From there, he decided to keep the party going, hosting Halloween parties and News Years Eve parties every year at many of the resorts in town.

"It got so big, we were doing events at the Convention Center and we had over 5,000 people," he said.

Because of Ingle's parties, many relationships were formed.

"One of my claims to fame with the parties is the people that met and got married and now have children," he said.

In response to the news of his cancer battle, his party guests are coming together to share their stories through a Facebook page called "Love for BB."

"I realized it was a gift that Facebook page because of the fact that I got to go down memory lane with everyone and sharing all the photos from the past parties," he said.

In just two weeks the page already has nearly 2,200 people.

"Usually those kinds of pages are created after someone's already passed away and they're not around to hear how people really feel about them," he said.

You can learn more about BB Ingle and his parties at http://partywithbb.com/

Photo Courtesy: Gary D Lopez