La’Shunta Terry can do cold weather. After she underwent a lumpectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy and eight weeks of radiation to destroy the disease that robbed her of a mother, blustery weather does not rank as a challenge.

Walk into any crowded room and you will find someone who has experienced the ravages of cancer, either first-hand or through PAUL
WOODY
a family member or friend. Cancer never is far from anyone’s mind. No one is surprised to receive the diagnosis. Shocked. Saddened. Frightened, perhaps, but not surprised. The disease is too prevalent, an equal-opportunity scourge.

LUSS, Scotland—Phil Mickelson will skip the British Open so he can be with his wife as she starts her recovery from breast cancer, ending the longest active streak of majors played at 61. Mickelson said last month at the U.S. Open it was “highly unlikely” he would play at Turnberry next week. His wife, Amy, had surgery July 1 for breast cancer, and they are still waiting to decide the best treatment. While his wife was preparing to undergo surgery, Mickelson learned his mother also had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Rebecca Smith had finished her Race for the Cure and was cheering other participants as they crossed the finish line just uphill from Kanawha Plaza. But the nurse practitioner at Henrico Cardiology Associates had one breast-cancer survivor especially in mind. “She just finished her last radiation treatment this week,“ Smith said of co-worker Laura Leiber. “She’s a brave, brave woman. . . . She missed one day of work.“

The Richmond Police Athletic League got a $1,686 boost from Rob Ukrop’s 39th birthday on April 2. For his 13th annual celebration at Chuck E. Cheese, the birthday boy provided the pizza and tokens. Participants contributed $1 or more to support the league.

. . . Dominion Virginia Power has donated $400,000 in smart-grid equipment and started a $45,000 fellowship fund at the Virginia Tech engineering school.

Richard Roundtree’s biggest movie role had him playing private detective John Shaft, a man’s man if ever there was one. The leather-coat-wearing Shaft was a symbol of masculinity in the 1970s. Or course, it was a movie role, and Roundtree is not really Shaft but a man who was thrown for a loop in 1993 when he was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Females are invited to attend a free workshop sponsored by the Central Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation. The event is scheduled March 14 from10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Richard Bland College in Prince George County. Topics and activities include:

Sisters Sheryl Taylor, 46, and Jami Taylor, 49, wonder whether they carry a gene that predisposes them to breast or other cancers. Their mother had breast cancer and later died of pancreatic cancer. An aunt had breast cancer, an uncle had colon cancer, and other relatives have had various cancers. “I have not had a clean mammogram since first getting them at 40,“ said Jami Taylor, explaining that she has had to get further testing of suspicious areas but always has been cancer-free. “Do I need an MRI?“ she asked, referring to an imaging test that can see cancers not visible on X-rays.