STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times

A choir sings "I Believe I Can Fly" during a breast cancer awareness event Wednesday at the Mill Mountain Star in Roanoke. Survivors, family members, friends and supporters gathered there to shout messages of encouragement and push for people to get mammograms and breast screenings.

A 73-year-old Salem woman stepped up to the microphone, her daughter's arm around her shoulders for support. She spoke softly and slowly, stumbling over the words: "It doesn't matter who or what you are. Get your breast exam, and encourage all your friends." About 50 women and a few men dressed in pink clapped in support.

That was Ruth Anderson's shout from Roanoke's Mill Mountain Star overlook Wednesday, one of many simple statements that people lined up to tell at the unofficial kickoff of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The second annual "Shout it from the Mountain Tops" event by the Greater Roanoke Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure brought together survivors, their loved ones and advocates to remember those affected by breast cancer and to educate others about the disease and early screening. They also announced the Roanoke Valley's first Race for the Cure, a Komen foundation-sponsored 5 kilometer run/walk planned for April 10 at Green Hill Park in Roanoke County.

Anderson and her daughter, Brenda Foster, 48, of Roanoke, were diagnosed with breast cancer within one month of each other in fall 2008.

They're both cancer-free today, they said.

Foster had had her yearly mammogram, and the doctors called her back for follow-up tests. Before she learned the results of her biopsy nearly a year ago, three doctors told her it didn't look good, she said. She needed a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction.

"That was the big kick in the rear for her," Foster said. Anderson got checked after her daughter had surgery, and doctors found a lump in November.

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More than 560 women in the Roanoke Valley will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and 113 will die from it, the regional Komen affiliate estimates.

"If I hadn't had that mammogram last year, I would be facing a whole different battle with cancer this year, and my mother would be facing a whole different battle," Foster said.

There are more than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the United States, the American Cancer Society reported in September.

Anderson and Foster stood together near the front of the crowd and turned toward the skyline of the mountains to listen to a gospel choir sing "I Believe I Can Fly" as bundles of pink balloons tied to the overlook threatened to take off with the wind.

Joann Menefee, a Rocky Mount native, Roanoke Komen board member and breast cancer survivor, had formed the a cappella choir that morning, bringing together her daughter, four female cousins and a close friend. The group had opened the afternoon with renditions of "Amazing Grace" and "Shout" and were there to promote Circle of Promise, a Komen campaign to educate black women about breast cancer.

The death rate for black women in the Roanoke area is one of the highest in Virginia, said Catherine Hagan-Aylor, a Carilion Clinic clinician and regional Komen vice president. Black women also have the highest mortality rate -- 36 percent more than white women -- of any ethnic or racial group in the country.

This year, more than 192,000 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and more than 40,000 will die from it, according to the American Cancer Society.

"Stand back -- I can be loud. I have to do a shout-out all the way to Charlottesville," Pam Epperly, one of the first shouters, said into the microphone. "And I have to be heard in heaven."

She recognized a friend in a Charlottesville hospice who's fighting breast cancer, as well as her mother and grandmother who died from other cancers.

Epperly, 51, had driven 45 minutes to the star, pulling her 15-year-old daughter, Martha, and her friend out of school that morning. The Christiansburg High School students, holding an "I am the cure" poster, told Epperly how proud they were of her shout-outs.

"I want them to see that this is what you do if you want something done," the mother said. "You cannot sit on the sidelines; you have to get up front."