Relay for Life rallies area cancer community, teams

Keith Gedamke/The Item Abigail Hammett, 5, and her brother Isaiah, 8, look at a picture taken by their mother Nicole of the luminary bags surrounding the track during Relay for Life on Friday evening.

2009 Relay for Life

By JOE PERRY
Item Staff Writer
jperry@theitem.com

Cancer survivors and their supporters flocked to District 2 Memorial Stadium on Friday to begin a 12-hour walk-a-thon with a mind set of defeating cancer.

The 2009 Sumter Relay for Life campaign for the American Cancer Society raised $141,600, said Elaine Hood, chairperson of the Relay for Life Committee.

“I slept a couple hours,” on Saturday, she said, laughing, but didn’t get any sleep during the event. “It was great — I think it was the largest turnout we’ve ever had.”

Hood gave kudos to all the sponsors, noting this year’s goal of $156,000 can still be met by the end of August.

The first lap at each event is reserved for cancer survivors, and saw Dawn Gauvreau clad in her purple T-shirt getting in place as the event kicked off at 7 p.m.

“Today is my day,” she said, beaming.

Now with her colon cancer in remission for seven years, she said “every day you wake up is a great day.”

Gauvreau, of Stateburg, teaches special education at Camden Middle School during the day and reading at Central Carolina Technical College at night.

She said she and her husband Bob look forward to the event each year, with this year being her seventh.

“It’s real important,” she said, “and a tight-knit group.”

Sumterites Vicki Carty, 55, and her husband Ron, 57, held hands with Marisa Bailey, 71, as they made their way around the track during the survivor’s lap, all smiling and all sporting Hawaiian leis as part of the event’s theme: Luau, South Carolina style.

Vicki Carty has survived breast cancer for a year and nine months, she said, while Bailey has been cancer free from her bout with breast cancer for three years.

“It’s a special event to know you made it,” said Vicki Carty, noting they all belong to the Tuomey Breast Cancer Support Group, which has greatly aided their fight with cancer.

As the Crestwood High School marching band led them around the track, John Eddings said he was diagnosed with small cell cancer 10 months ago, and the diagnosis “sort of slows you down.”

The 58-year-old retired vocational teacher also walked in the Relay for Life event in Manning — where he lives — and said the keys to battling cancer are not complicated.

“God and a positive attitude,” he stated.

Taking a break about 8 p.m., Shirul Ford said she’d already walked a mile.

Ford, 69, has had her colon cancer in remission for 8 years, and said the radiation, chemotherapy and surgery took quite a toll but gives “100 percent of my credit” to her husband John “Buster” Ford for being a patient and loving caregiver.

She said it wasn’t just the frequent trips to the hospital, but surviving two blood clots — one in her lungs and one in her side — and an ileostomy that was fortunately reversed that make her thank the Lord each and every day.

“It takes a lot of praying and a lot of help,” she said. “My whole family was great the whole time.”



Contact Staff Writer Joe Perry at jperry@theitem.com or (803) 774-1272.