Models to strut their stuff for cancer cause
By PAT FRIDGEN Echo Pilot

Twelve local women do not consider themselves typical model material. They are not six feet tall, weighing 125 pounds. They are going to walk the runway anyway for a Relay for Life fundraiser. They have better credentials. They are cancer survivors.

The Fashion Show will be held Sept. 25 at Kauffman Ruritan Club.

"I don't have a model figure and probably never will," said Raetta Thomas of Greencastle.

However, she is willing to pose in three outfits furnished by Dress Barn to help raise money for a cause dear to her heart. She has been on a Relay for Life team with her husband Barry for several years, after recovering from en- dometrial cancer in 2001.

"I was quite devastated," she said. "The diagnosis was the last thing I wanted to hear. My mom had the same thing in the 1970s."

The good news is her cancer was caught in the first stage. She had surgery, but did not need chemotherapy or radiation. Now 58, she sees the doctor once a year. Her mother fared just as well and lived to be 93.

Susan Sherrill, 62, Waynesboro, went through the emotional gamut when she developed breast cancer 10 years ago.

Her reaction was "Wow, do I have six months to live?"

She is hesitant to tell her story. She is grateful to the American Cancer Society for educating both women and men on the need for mammograms. Her lump was discovered during the screening. Since her cancer was supposed to be a fast moving kind, she sought help through prayer and underwent a radical mastectomy.

When the removed tissue was examined, the doctors could find no cancer cells.

"I was healed of the Lord," she said. "It's a miracle story, really."

Today she is a substitute aide in the Greencastle-Antrim School District and enjoys traveling with her husband Jim.

Jean Leckron, 79, State Line, went through the breast cancer experience twice. She had a lumpectomy the first time and then a mastectomy on the other side. The doctor thought the illnesses, five years apart, were unrelated.

She underwent 35 radiation treatments.

"It wasn't too bad. I got very tired. I'd sleep well and felt good for about two hours, then was exhausted," she recalled.

She kept going with the support of her late husband Earl and her family.

"Modeling isn't my cup of tea¿" she said, but she is participating anyway.

The other models are Dottie Kay, Mary Bock, Sabine Nave, Betty Daley and Tena Karinshak, Greencastle; Brandi South, Shirley Rice and Kelly Spinner, Chambersburg; and Myrtle Hartle, Hagerstown, Md.

Tickets must be purchased by Sept. 15 and are available at the Echo Pilot, Curves, Carl's Drug, Graphics Universal, Dodie's Designs, Total Energy Services/Greencastle Tax Office, Greencastle; Record Herald, Waynesboro; American Cancer Society Office and Penn National Golf Course Pro Shop, Chambersburg; and Earl's Market, State Line.

Doors open at 5:30 and the chicken and ham dinner is at 6:30. Four Relay for Life teams are sponsoring the event.