By By BEN RAYMOND LODE / Niles Daily Star
NILES -- Orchard Hills Country Club was the venue for the 9-hole Rally For A Cure golf scramble in the glowing afternoon sun on Tuesday.
Supporting the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the mission of Rally For A Cure is to educate women about the steps that can be taken to combat breast cancer, and to eliminate breast cancer as a life threatening disease.
Tuesday's event was the first Rally For a Cure golf outing held at the country club.
Duke, who spent countless hours organizing the event, said around 60 of the country club's members paid the $15 entry fee and tee'd off after the Rally's opening ceremony.
The Rally's opening ceremony included a moment of silence followed by the release of dozens of pink balloons in honor of breast cancer survivors.
According to Rally For A Cure, more than 8.5 million dollars have been generated through Rally For A Cure events since the program started in 1996.
The program has raised awareness of breast cancer and taken the life saving message of early detection to hundreds of thousands of active women.
Golfers at 2,800-plus clubs in all 50 states and 2 foreign countries answered the call in 2002 to fight breast cancer and to support the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation through the Rally For A Cure campaign.
Judy Phillips from Niles, who is an eight-year breast cancer survivor herself, took part in Tuesday's golf outing together with her husband, Ron Phillips.
She was pleased to see so many people taking part in the event, in particular the male contingent.
Healthy all her life, Phillips said it came as a surprise when she was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago.
Having lived through the cancer treatments and experienced the pains involved with them, she said it's important to keep raising funds for cancer research to speed up the process of finding a cure.
But she said her own story indicates cancer researchers have already come far.
Chuck Pullen is the golf professional at Orchard Hills Country Club.
Like Becky Duke, he was pleasantly surprised to see the large turnout for the Rally.
He hoped the event would raise $2,500.
Apart from the people taking part in the Rally, he was pleased to see that so many people donated gifts and money for the cause.
All proceeds from the event will go to Rally For A Cure.