By Audrey Dodgen/Staff Writer

The crowd gathers just as the sun begins its final descent beyond the horizon. Many fund-raising events begin in the early evening. Few, though, require participants to walk through the night, releasing them only at daybreak.

American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life does just that.

The El Reno Relay for Life event began at 7 p.m. Friday and ended at 7 a.m. Saturday.

The event is held overnight to illustrate the progressive stages through which a cancer survivor and their families must travel.

In the early hours of the event, the sun continues to fade and the world gets darker. Cancer patients say this is similar to the way their lives feel immediately after diagnosis.

The night continues to deepen and the steps around the track at Memorial Stadium fall more heavily, as the walker’s strength is tested.

As morning breaks, participants are exhausted, ready to go home and rest. Organizers say this is the way cancer patients feel after the trials of their treatments — exhausted, ready for rest, but able to face a new day.

As the event was called to order, participants were introduced to the organizing committee and the corporate sponsors for the event.

Each year, a local cancer survivor is called upon to speak to the crowd before they begin walking.

This year, Willard Holsted spoke of his battle with prostate cancer three years ago.

“I know that I never would have made it through this without Jesus Christ and the love of my family,” he said.

His diagnosis came after relatively routine test results, though a slight anomaly prompted his doctor to order more exams.

Holsted said his research led him to a doctor in Florida who removed the tumor laparoscopically, a rare procedure at the time.

“We just kept meeting people on the trip who told us that God would be with me, and He was,” he said.

After the address, each cancer survivor in the field — wearing purple shirts bearing the “survivor” designation — stepped to the microphone, gave their name and the length of time they had been a survivor and began the first lap around the track.

When they had completed their lap, the captains of the participating teams introduced their teams and shared their year-long fund-raising strategies. Each team then began its first lap.

The aim of the event is for each team to have a member on the track at all times.

Jean Ann Widdifield, a nurse at Russell-Murray Hospice, said their staff has participated every year in the El Reno event, in its 12th year.

“You can see on our shirts that our theme is ‘Russell-Murray K.O.s Cancer’,” she said.

“We work every day with people who are dying from a lot of diseases, and a lot of them don’t have cures, but we’re out here to show that it’s important to cure cancer. We believe in what we do, but we also believe in finding a cure.”

As she spoke, Widdifield donned a pair of brightly colored boxing gloves. She joined her glove-clad team at the podium where they started walking, hoping each step brings them closer to a cure.