SHELL LAKE — The 26th-annual Washburn County Relay for Life, held on a sunny Friday evening, June 14, at Shell Lake Memorial Park, raised $20,000 to raise cancer.
The American Cancer Society’s annual event kicked off Friday evening with the Shell Lake Police Department squad driving around the park with its lights and sirens on. Mayor Rowie Hansberger then led the opening ceremony.
Hansberger said when she asked Relay Co-Chair Steve Clay what she could do to help, he simply replied, “You can come.”
And she did. Hansberger got her friends and coworkers to create a team for the walk to help drive the numbers up this year.
“I lost both of my parents early on to cancer,” she said, adding that she is now older than both her parents when they passed.
Clay, who also lost someone close to him to cancer early on — his high school best friend at age 18 — said the Washburn County Relay had over 50 sponsors this year.
“They’re very appreciative of what we do,” he said.
He and Co-Chair Kate Folstad told the crowd to bring ideas for next year, as they would like to try something new.
Mary Hemshrot was the honorary chair this year, having survived multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.
“(Hope) is really what we’re here for,” she said.
In 1999, Hemshrot was diagnosed with the cancer, a type which she had never heard of before. She was 44 years old and given seven years to live. She began chemotherapy right away.
“Sometimes they were nasty, and sometimes they were frightening,” she said of the treatments.
Hemshrot was the Relay honorary chair seven years ago, and is cancer-free.
“You are celebrating with me my 25th-year anniversary,” she said.
Hemshrot said she never asked why she had cancer, or why she was lucky to survive. She simply did some research on non-medical methods to fight cancer, and was told some people meditate on an image to think of how to fight. Some imagined guns, and some imagined sharks, which Hemshrot said she didn’t want to think about.
While sitting at home recovering, she looked outside at her bird feeder one day and thought, “Could birds be a cancer-fighting image?”
Then it came to her — “Chickens!” she exclaimed. “Chickens eat everything!”
She began imagining chickens “chomping” on her cancer cells. Then one day, her husband, Steve, talked to some people at church about Hemshrot’s idea. Two days later, a woman came over “with three black phantom chickens,” she said.
Steve got busy setting up a coop with their children, and suddenly they had 15 chickens.
“I could watch them eat everything,” Hemshrot said. “I could literally watch them eat my cancer cells.”
They still have chickens to this day, and their grandchildren love them.
“Obviously, Mary did not ‘chicken’ out in fighting cancer,” Clay joked.
Since Hemshrot’s bout with cancer, her doctor said the treatments for multiple myeloma have gotten better, and he doesn’t even use the ones he used on her anymore. Her own blood stem cells were used to fight her cancer.
“There are increased reasons to hope every year,” she said.
Hemshrot said she researched cancer statistics and discovered that 40.5% of U.S. men and women will have cancer at some point.
The Relay then had a survivor and caregiver lap around the park for those present, and people walked, enjoyed conversation and live entertainment before the dusk luminary and glowstick ceremony. People could purchase a luminary in honor/memory/support of someone who has or has had cancer, and those persons’ names were read off during the ceremony.
Next year’s Relay for Life is set for June 13, 2025.
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