Photos by JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Lyndsey Onyett (from left) crosses the finish line at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with Carolyn Hornick, Jon Onyett and Robynn Onyett.

JEANNA DUERSCHERL The Roanoke Times

Members of Darcy's Dream Team are photographed Saturday after finishing the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

Participants in Saturday's Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure pinned pink tags to their clothing in memory of family and friends who have died of breast cancer.

GLENVAR -- Mary Sutphin's family knows about breast cancer.

One of six sisters, Sutphin, 65, lost one sibling to breast cancer last year. Another counts herself a six-year survivor. As far anyone knew, these were the first cases of breast cancer in their family.

"It's scary," Sutphin said at Roanoke County's Green Hill Park, where her family's three-generation, 22-person "Darcy's Dream Team," named for her late sister, Doris Ripley, prepared for the walking portion of the region's inaugural Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

"It is kind of scary," agreed one of Sutphin's sisters, Peggy Porter, 69, of Roanoke. "But we've always been aware."

With a focus on awareness -- but presented with a more generalized pummel-cancer-into-submission attitude -- Saturday's race came across as more celebratory than mournful.

Participation and fundraising goals were demolished, said race Chairwoman Wendi Schultz, who proclaimed herself "tired ... but ecstatic."

She said 2,119 walkers and runners raised more than $264,000 for treatment and prevention of breast cancer -- well above the $150,000 organizers hoped to bring in.

Three-quarters of the money raised by the event goes to cancer prevention and treatment in a 19-county area around Roanoke. The other 25 percent goes to national research.

Besides a 5K race and 5K and 1-mile walks, there were Carilion Clinic and HCA booths where women could schedule mammograms, as well as face-painting clowns and much more. The pink-ribbon symbol of breast cancer campaigns was augmented by pink flags, pink balloons, pink boas and pink carnations, a pink wig worn with a Superwoman costume and T-shirts with messages such as "Fight Like a Girl" and "Saving Second Base."

Muhandes Salaamallah of Roanoke and Greg Law of Hardy, founders of the decade-old Diversity Drummers group, pounded out beats near the walks' start and finish line. "Living for life," Salaamallah said.

Douglas Peyton, with a pink ribbon painted on his cheek and several balloons twisted around his cap, hollered "Survivors rock!" as walkers and runners came by. He said he'd come from Staunton with a Girl Scout team to honor his wife, Susan Peyton, a one-year survivor of breast cancer. "This event is all about her," Peyton said.

Schultz, tourism and event coordinator for the Roanoke County Parks, Recreation & Tourism and a board member with the local Susan G. Komen chapter, said the size of the crowd could be guessed at from volunteers' report that only about 50 of Green Hill Park's 5,000 parking spaces remained free. About 150 volunteers worked at the event, though many more assisted with preparation.

One example of the event's complexity came from Judy King of Vinton. She had shown up about 5 a.m. to set up a memory garden where for a $10 or $15 donation, people could put a loved one's name on a plywood cutout of a flower.

King and her husband had come out Friday to mow and paint a huge pink ribbon in the grass to be the focal point of the garden. Earlier they'd helped coordinate the construction of the flowers from 84 Lumber's donation of wood, to Lowe's workers ripping it into squares, to a shop class at Central Academy Middle School in Fincastle cutting the actual flower shapes, to Girl and Boy Scouts assembling and painting the flowers.

"This took a major effort," King said.

By midmorning Saturday, the garden had more than 80 flowers.

Lyndee Craig of Bassett tucked her 6-month-old daughter, Hayden, into a stroller to walk with the other five members of Team Pink Passion. "We all thought it was real important to support this cause," Craig said.

Craig said her grandmother, who is in her 60s and also lives in Henry County, is in the midst of breast cancer treatment and "we want her around to see her great-grandbabies grow up."

Tami Reavis, 47, of Cloverdale, walked with top fundraiser Team Decca, which brought in $13,600. A month ago, Reavis completed a high-intensity, internal radiation treatment for breast cancer in Arizona. It's a treatment not available locally, she said. Although it had gone well, "I'm glad I didn't know ahead of time" all the procedures involved in inserting dozens of catheters for the delivery of radiation, Reavis said.

Shannon Roberson of Christiansburg, Sutphin's niece and the daughter of Doris Ripley, the namesake of "Darcy's Dream Team," stood with her own daughter, Hettie, 8. She explained the drawing Hettie created to be the team's logo: A woman reclining in a bed, with a thought bubble showing a pink ribbon.

It depicted Ripley, Roberson said, dreaming that her children and grandchildren would not have cancer.