As you may know, MAY is Melanoma Awareness month. Each May, I put on my clergy rob and become the “Minister of Melanoma”. You might too if you lost your best friend to this disease as I did ten years ago. Although losing your best friend is about as bad as it gets in relationships, I ferverently believe that on the other side of adversity is always something better. The something better is his death is that many lives have been saved and many people educated about the dangers of too much sun exposure. Our melanoma foundation has cosponsored symposiums with leading melanoma researchers from all over the world attending. An association of melanoma researchers has been formed AND people are getting it.

In the last few weeks, I have traveled to Daytona Beach, FL where we held the 11th annual Rayz Awareness run. I have also traveled to Fort Collins, CO where I ran in the Bill Walter Melanoma Research 5K that was held at the school Bill’s son attends. It was cool to see his son up on stage talking, registering runners, and finishing 8th out of 200 runners (I surprised myself and finished 24th - not bad for a VERY occasional runner). If you happen to be local and want to help, please let me know. We are having a 5K and 10K run June 14th at the Rush Fitness Center. Soon details will be up on Rayz Awareness website.