The Relay for Life is an annual fundraiser and event for the American Cancer Society, hosted to honor the survivors of cancer, to remember lost loved ones, and to fight back against the disease.
South county will host its own Relay for Life event at South River High School in Edgewater on June 11 and 12.
At the event, teams are called upon to have at least one member walking the track throughout the night. The relay was started in 1985 by an Oregon surgeon, Dr. Gordy Klatt, who walked around a track for 24 hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Since then, the relay has become one of the largest such fundraising events, with over 3.5 million participants in 5,000 communities.
Last Thursday, the south county Relay for Life organizers hosted a kickoff at Londontowne Community Center in Edgewater with a potluck supper where cancer survivors were feted for having made it to another birthday, and teams were able to get together to begin focusing on their fundraising efforts.
Cindy Ringer, this year's event chairwoman, got involved when her daughter joined a local fire department team. The event hits home for Cindy because she lost her father to cancer when she was pregnant.
"I walk for those who can't," Cindy said.
From now until the relay in June, teams will meet with organizers on the second Tuesday of each month at Chesapeake Christian Fellowship in Davidsonville. New teams can sign up at those meetings, or by going online to www.relayforlife.org/saac. There are 28 teams on the roster.
Cindy said that they are hoping for 60 teams and to raise $180,000 this year. Each team is limited to between five and 20 members, but can consist of anyone who wants to join - families, friends, coworkers or clubs. The cost is $10 per participant. Once a team reaches 20 people, they start a new team.
That's how Cindy's daughter Ashley got involved. When the fire department's team got too big, Ashley started her own Ashley's Angels. When that team hit 20 members, they started Ashley's Angels II.
The money raised goes directly to the American Cancer Society to fund treatment and research.
Dede Connelly joined her friend's group, "United We Stand," which was started by Jimmy and Nancy Herr. Dede's husband and sister are both cancer survivors.
"My sister had breast cancer and the cancer society supplied her with new bras, wigs, and pillows and blankets that were handmade for cancer patients," Dede said. "Until they did that for my sister, I had no idea that they did that sort of thing," she said.
"They also had workshops to do her makeup and make her feel beautiful. I want to help raise money for that," Dede said.
Cindy has plenty of help in organizing. Marcy Owens is a member of Ashley's Angels, and an event coordinator. This year's event theme is "Celebrating More Birthdays," Marcy said.
"At the kickoff we honored 12 of our survivors, who together have celebrated an additional 145 birthdays," she said.
Marcy got involved after her son joined Ashley's team. "Once we attended a meeting, we knew it was worth the time and energy. It is a fundraiser, but it is so much more than that. It is community. It's people coming together to help each other, to celebrate and remember and to work toward a common goal of getting rid of cancer," Marcy said.
Davidsonville Elementary School hosted the return of the National Geographic Geography Bee to the school Jan. 13. Parent Jodi Doney was the coordinator of this year's event, which is limited to students in the fourth and fifth grades.
There were 16 students who signed up in October. They met once a week before school. Fourth-grade teacher Jan Kerr was the faculty adviser, and helped to gather geography books for the children to study. In addition, they accessed National Geographic's online activities and quizzes.
On the day of the competition, the 16 students lined up on the stage, all dressed alike in blue shirts. Faculty adviser Kerr was the reader. There were seven rounds of questions, and at the end of the seven rounds, the 10 students with the most correct answers moved on to the next round. From there, three were selected as finalists, and from those one winner was crowned.
The winning student has the opportunity to take a proctored, written test that will be forwarded to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C.
In each state, the top 100 scorers from elementary and middle school participate in a state competition. From there, the top 50 state winners go to the National Spelling Bee in Washington - emceed by "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebeck.
The questions were about details of geographic features like lakes and mountains, as well as capitals, boundaries, and cultural characteristics of places both domestic and foreign.
Teachers Kristy Snyder and May Murphy helped with scoring and time-keeping.
The kids answered a good number of the difficult questions correctly.
At the end of the seven rounds, the top 10 finalists were: Lyndsay Brooks, Max Meinhold, Grace Turner, Rachel Mathers, Brett Colburn, Morgan Mathers, Alex Rozner, Jodee Nieman, Ray Ritter and Madison Shannahan.
Kerr said that she had to take time to study the questions as the reader because many of the foreign words required intense pronunciation practice.
Scorekeeper Snyder said that she was surprised at the breadth of knowledge of the students.
At the finals, first place went to Lyndsay Brooks, fifth grade; second place went to Ray Ritter, fourth grade; and third place went to Brett Colburn, fifth grade.
"I was kind of scared because I wasn't sure how hard the questions would be," Lyndsay said. She took the written test on Friday and will find out in a few weeks if she will follow in the footsteps of her older brother, Connor Brooks, currently in 10th grade, who went to the state competition in 2007.
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