Friends and Neighbors: Wallin keeps Relay For Life going in Kimball County

Though she won her personal fight, Fran Wallin has continued battling cancer for more than a decade.

Diagnosed in November of 2001, Wallin had just completed treatment when her friend Carolyn Brown asked her to take part in the American Cancer Society's main fundraiser for the organization's research, the Relay For Life.

"I wasn't there the first year. Carolyn Brown asked me to come in 2002, that is the year she started it. I had finished my cancer treatments that spring and that was the first time I was going to my hometown, so I didn't participate," Wallin said.

However, it did not take her long before she was not only participating, but an integral part of the team. In the following years, Wallin volunteered her time and energy to her friend and her cause.

"When Carolyn started this I said, 'Carolyn I am not much for going to meetings, but you tell me what you need done and it will be done, you won't have to question, worry or check on me,'" Wallin said. "I just kept getting more and more involved."

For years the Relay was held at the high school track. It was easier to walk there, Wallin said, and the infield was used for camping. However, there was no shade and survivors often struggle with excessive heat.

"I went to a Relay in Longmont and they held theirs in a park," Wallin said. "I thought that is a good idea. There is shade and there is shelter. I don't want to sit in the heat, it is too hot."

Through the years volunteers have come and gone, but Wallin said she could not have done it each year without their support.

"From 2003 on I have been there," Wallin said. "One year we had six people, sometimes it is two or three."

Wallin said the reason that volunteerism is not a lack of caring, it is a lack of time.

"People are involved in their own lives and when they have kids and jobs, you just can't do a lot of stuff," Wallin said. "I feel bad because its not what it could be. We try to keep it going."

The Relay For Life committee hosts two bake sales to raise funds for the American Cancer Society, "Just Desserts" around Valentines Day and "Breakfast Breads" during the Easter season.

"That is one thing people seem to like," Wallin said. "We seem to do really well with bake sales. And car washes are just too much work for us old people."

Wallin said friends and previous coworkers are wonderful when it comes to helping provide for the bake sales as well as showing up just to help.

"I couldn't bake enough stuff on my own," she said. "On the night of the Relay there are people that show up asking what I need done. They just step right in serving food and collecting money."

Wallin said that the local Relay For Life committee appreciates any donations of silent auction items as well as monetary donations.

"There are some really nice people that send me checks all the time. I have a friend, we went to school together from first grade through high school and then we went through nursing school together," Wallin said. "Every summer in July she sends me a check for the American Cancer Society."

The organization, which encourages each person who receives a T-shirt to bring in $100 in donations, no longer sanctions the local event because it is difficult for Kimball to raise that amount of money.

Not one to give up, Wallin had her own shirts made for participants that simply lacked the ACS logo.

This year, however, due to cooperation with Ogallala, Wallin expects more support from the American Cancer Society.

"This year we are connected to Western Trails of Nebraska with Ogallala," Wallin said. "Ogallala and Kimball are the only two on the western side of the state that have a Relay For Life and this year is the 30th year for Relay."

She recognizes that Kimball's small Relay For Life not only raises money for the research that the ACS does, but it also brings survivors together.

"Years ago it was a lot of games, but now it is sharing stories," Wallin said. "We have had some really awesome speakers these past few years."

These speakers and the support that attendees receive provide hope, Wallin said.

She continues working on the annual event with the help of her friends and her family, as her husband, Larry, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012, assists.

"You need the support of family and friends to get through it," Wallin said. "Larry helps out a lot behind the scenes with the Relay, doing all the lifting and setting out the luminarias."

Their sons, Jeff and Brad, also participate in the Relay For Life in their own hometowns, Ogallala and Longmont, Colorado.

The Wallins are one of five couples on the local survivor list. There are two families on that register listing both parents and an adult child who have survived cancer.

"There is something wrong with this picture," she said.

Because both Larry and Fran are survivors, their sons' chances of getting cancer are tripled.

"That's the worst part of the whole thing, even worse than being told you have cancer and going through treatment," Wallin said.

Recent information states that there are 14 million cancer survivors currently living, more than four times the survival rate in 1971, according to Wallin.

"So we have made progress, but there is still a long ways to go," she added. "That says it all."

Wallin, a registered nurse, said that research is imperative to making further progress.

The American Cancer Society's research program, established in 1946, has funded more than $4 billion in cancer research.

Prevention is key, and Wallin encourages everyone to practice it by getting regular mammograms, prostate exams and colonoscopies.

"Health Maintenance – don't keep putting it off," she said.

The Annual Relay for Life in Kimball will be Aug. 21 at Gotte Park at the east end shelter. This year the Relay will be held in conjunction with the Western Trails Relay For Life of Ogallala. The Relay in Ogallala will be held July 17.