BENEFIT TO BE HELD SUNDAY FOR ILL COUNTRY SINGER FROM CAPE

Someone who's a good singer and a good cook figures to have lots of friends. Kay Wolpers needs them right now.

A month ago, doctors discovered massive tumors in Wolpers' brain as well as tumors in her lungs and liver. She underwent radiation treatments in the hospital and was sent home with discouraging advice.

"They said, Get your things in order."

She's done so but she's still planning to see her five grandchildren grow up, including her first granddaughter, Taylor, born last November. The others are Caleb, Justin, Jake and Devan.

"They wanted to give me this grim story," she recalled. "I said, I don't want to hear it. I just plan on living."

On top of having cancer, one of the challenges she faces is how to pay for her medical treatment. She has no insurance because she changed jobs just before the cancer was diagnosed.

To help with Wolpers' medical bills, the Cape Girardeau Eagles Aerie 3775 is holding a benefit from 2-7 p.m. Sunday at the VFW Hall. Four bands -- Manitou, Night Shift, Month of Sundays, and Bruce Zimmerman and the Shysters -- have volunteered to perform.

Merchants and friends have donated more than 100 items for a silent auction. Cassettes of the novelty song Wolpers released in 1996, "Ready When," will be for sale.

Wolpers has been a singer with country bands for the past two decades, opening for the likes of John Anderson, the Bellamy Brothers, George Jones and Tammy Wynette. At one time she made eight nationally-distributed records with a label called Caprice.

Flowers and good wishes have streamed in from Nashville. A poster announcing the benefit has gone up at the Grand Ole Opry.

Locally, she sang for a period with a group called the Outlaw Country Band.

More cards and letters have arrived from churches and clubs where she has sung.

Pam Boyd, president of the Eagles auxiliary, is organizing the benefit. "We're giving her moral support and financial support," she said.

Leah Richardson, a friend since 1978, also is helping. She said Wolpers is one of the most upbeat, good-hearted people she knows. "She'd give you the last dollar she had if she thought you needed it worse than she does."

Wolpers doesn't know how much the bills amount to. "There's no point looking at them," she says. "They'll keep coming."

She's due to see her doctor again Wednesday. Until very recently, she estimates, she'd only visited a doctor's office twice in the past 25 years.

But two months ago, while in Kansas on a 2,200-mile road trip with a glamour photography company she worked for, Wolpers became very sick. She came home to Cape Girardeau, where she says doctors told her the problem was menopause and nerves.

After dropping 24 pounds, she told a son she had cancer even though she says doctors kept insisting she was just nervous and depressed.

Wolpers took a new job as a motel desk clerk. Some days she felt awful but she only missed work once in six weeks. Finally a gastroenterologist sent her in for an MRI that turned up the brain tumors, including one on her brain stem.

A month and 15 rounds of radiation later, Wolpers says she feels good and plans to sing a few songs Sunday.

"I feel like I'll be healed. I've got a positive attitude," she says. "I've got things to do."

For information or to donate auction items, phone Boyd at 334-9161 or Richardson at 334-4174.