EMERSON WALKS IN CANCER FUND-RAISER

It's not very often people get emotional about walking the track at Southeast Missouri State University's Recreational Center. Saturday was different as about 350 people participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life fund-raiser.

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson walked more than 20 laps around the indoor course. Then, surrounded by her family, she talked to those attending the event about her disappointment at not being able to say goodbye to her late husband, Bill Emerson. The former congressman died of lung cancer June 22, 1996.

"I talked to him on the telephone on my way out to the hospital," Jo Ann Emerson said. "I told him I loved him and he said he loved me and that's the last time I was able to talk to him. Do you know how hard that is?"

She regrets not having that "final conversation."

She said, "I never acknowledged that he wasn't going to live. I couldn't have foreseen it. If I could have I probably still wouldn't have let myself believe it because I'm a real optimistic person," she said.

"I guess I always felt deep down that if I ever allowed myself to believe that this could be terminal I could never have fought as hard as I did alongside him to make sure that we did everything possible to make him live," she said.

Emerson thinks just about everyone who has dealt in some way with cancer has felt the way she has.

"We all share something in common, we all share cancer in common," she said. "Whether we're a survivor or whether a loved one has died or a loved one has recovered -- we all know what it's like to go through treatment and to know the pain."

She said events like Relay For Life advances the public's awareness about cancer prevention, treatment and research.

The government spends millions to study cancer, but it does not have the resources to spend the kind of money that is needed, she said. The public must become involved to beat the disease.

This year's Relay For Life was one of the most successful in recent years. Brian Yarbrough, in charge of fund-raising projects for the cancer society, said the event will exceed organizers' expectations in every aspect.

Yarbrough said the society had hoped to have 15 teams; 22 signed up. It hoped to sell 100 luminaries, candles dedicated to a cancer victim or survivor; it sold 215. It hoped to raise $15,000; it may have raised as much as $24,000.

Of that money, 40 percent goes to national research and 60 percent is spent locally in patient services and treatment.

The event is centered around an all-day walk. Beginning at 8 a.m., a member of each team walks a certain number of laps then hands off to another member of the team. This continues until 8 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., the luminaries are lit for the final half-hour of the walk.

Kathryn King, an account executive with KZIM radio, walked the first lap of her team's relay -- the lap reserved for cancer survivors. King was asked to organize KZIM's team before she was diagnosed and operated on for cancer four weeks ago.

King said the operation was successful in removing all of the cancer, she credits that to early detection, but she's worried it may come back.