October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, when individuals, businesses, and communities come together each year to demonstrate support for the many people affected by breast cancer, whether as patients, family members, friends, or colleagues.
Members of the Putnam County Board of Commissioners recognized the fight against breast cancer on Oct. 6, with a brief ceremony in the lobby of their offices in Eatonton, followed by an awareness walk around the commission grounds and a light breakfast.
County Commission Chairman Bill Sharp opened the event shortly after 8 a.m. with a brief description of his own wife’s battle against breast cancer, now five years in recovery.
Sharp said approximately 13 percent of all American women will be afflicted with breast cancer at some point in their lives, but 91 percent of non-metastatic invasive breast cancer patients can now expect to live at least five years after diagnosis and 85 percent will live another 10 years or longer, according to American Medical Society statistics.
Though men can contract breast cancer, less than one percent of all U.S. breast cancer patients are male. Last year, about 2,700 men were diagnosed with breast cancer nationwide, compared to approximately 287,000 women.
Following Sharp’s comments, County Commissioner Gary McElhenney led a brief prayer before County Manager Paul Van Haute took more than 30 attendees on a one-mile Cancer Awareness Walk around the county facilities alongside Hwy. 441 north of town.
Also participating in the walk were Eatonton Mayor John Reid with his wife and City Councilmember Janie Reid, City Councilmember Marie Rainey, a breast cancer survivor herself, Putnam County Fire Chief Thomas McClain, Putnam County Animal Services Director Christine Tillman, and several more county employees, breast cancer survivors, patients, and their supporters.
At the walk’s conclusion, Van Haute met with Charles “Rick” Rogers and Dee Burks, the husband and daughter of Deborah Rogers, a Putnam County employee who previously survived breast cancer but passed away from lymphoma late in June this year. With them by his side, Van Haute revealed a freshly planted pink rose bush, near the northeast corner of the county building and beside previously planted commemorative bushes for county employees Linda Sadler and Ellen Pierce.
“This is wonderful for us to come and remember her. I live in Warner Robbins, but my dad, still lives in Sparta, and I have to take care of him now, so I come up here to see him and we come to Eatonton often. I might even get a stand or a little plaque or something to put her name to it,” Burks said of the planting. “For her fellow employees to think of her the way they do, to say what they did, it’s got me crying. I’m an only child, so yeah, I miss my mom. But to have them plant flowers for her and give me and my dad somewhere to come and remember her, it’s nice, really special.
“But I’d like to thank Cynthia Miller. She’s reached out a lot and she’s just been the best. She took care of us after my mom passed and she still does today. She’s just the sweetest lady,” Burks continued. “She was at the funeral and we had a lot of stuff that we had to take care of after the funeral with the city and county or whatever, and she just was an angel who helped us all along the way.”
Continuing in Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Miller, the county’s human resources director, said Putnam County employees will play their annual softball game on Saturday, Oct. 21, beginning at 11 a.m. at the Putnam County Recreation Center (140 Recreation Rd., Eatonton).
Admission is free, but all proceeds from snack bar sales during the game will be donated to the Doris Shaheen Breast Health Center at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital (piedmont. org/womens-services/ breast-health/ doris-shaheen-breasthealth- center).
Additionally, Miller said county employees will put their chili cooking skills on the line on Oct. 26 at the administration building (117 Putnam Dr., Eatonton), again in support of breast cancer research through the Shaheen Breast Health Center.
She said $7 tickets will be sold for attendees to begin sampling various chilis at noon, with the tickets then used to vote for favorites, with all proceeds again benefiting breast cancer research.