Runners, Walkers Turn Out to Battle Breast Cancer

The  17th Annual Wyoming Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure drew somewhere  around 2200 walkers and runners to downtown Cheyenne Saturday morning, according to Race Director Rick Bishop. Bishop said the final tally was not immediately available, but said it appears race participation would probably be down by around 200 from 2011.  He attributed the decline to controversy surrounding organization founder Nancy Brinker, who stepped down as Komen Foundation C-E-O earlier this week amid fallout over a short lived plan to cut funding to Planned Parenthood earlier this year.

Even so, Bishop said he expected this year's race to raise over $200. 000 to fight breast cancer through mammograms,  free  screenings and other tools to fight the disease. Bishop says almost all of the money raised by the Wyoming event stays in the state. Bishop added one of the organizations goals is to raise the percentage of Wyoming women who receive mammograms, which is consistently among the lowest in the country. Bishop says he thinks the final tally of participants will show around 800 people running the 5k course, along with 1200 to 1400 people walking to raise money to fight breast cancer.