After her breast cancer diagnosis in 2010, Lois Acklen’s friends decorated her wheelchair with pink balloons, dressed her in a pink hat and feather boa and pushed her the entire route of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. 

Every year after, she volunteered at the race and participated. Every year until this year. 

“This is the first year she hasn’t been here,” her husband, Tommy Acklen said. 

His wife died in February, two years after her cancer returned, attacking her liver and then the rest of her. 

But still, on Saturday morning in Downtown Memphis, there was her husband of nearly 53 years. 

Tommy Acklen stood proud outside the entrance to the club level of AutoZone Park, ready to hold the door for breast cancer survivors as they made their way inside for a brunch just for them. 

He tells each of them he’s glad they are there. And he was glad to be there, too, even if it was admittedly hard to volunteer without his wife. 

“If she were here and not able to come, she would still tell me to come,” Acklen said. “I have no doubt.”

His wife, he said, loved being around other people who were fighting the disease. He loved helping any way he could.

“I’m doing it in honor of her,” Acklen said.

The annual event raised over $500,000 by Saturday morning, Elaine Hare, CEO of Susan G. Komen Memphis-MidSouth Mississippi, said. The goal is to raise $750,000 by Nov. 15. 

Of that money, Hare said, 25 percent goes to national research initiatives. The other 75 percent stays in the community and supports educational programs, screenings and healthcare grants. 

Many patients have insurance but high deductibles, Hare said, and can apply for grants through Komen to cover their costs. 

With one in eight women diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives, the disease touches nearly everyone, and the event brings “all parts of our community together,” Hare said. 

However, a 2014 study showed Memphis had the greatest disparity in the nation’s 50 largest cities for breast cancer mortality between black and white women. 

During a five-year span, black women died at a rate of 44.3 per 100,000 women, more than double the rate of 21 per 100,000 for white women.

Given that Memphis is 64 percent black, Hare said, “if we have a disease that affects them at that high of a rate, it’s a critical issue for us.”

“Where you live should not determine if you live.”

The event registered 6,000 runners and attracted thousands of spectators.

Throngs of pink running clothes, pink tutus and even a few pink dinosaur Halloween costumes made their way through the streets of Downtown.

“I love it,” participant Teresa Scott said. “The excitement, the energy.”

Scott ran the race for her mother, a 27-year survivor of breast cancer, and an aunt who died from the disease. 

She had to work overnight, but wasn’t missing the event Saturday. Scott said she got home at 6:30 a.m., took a shower and headed for the race. She donned a pink Cat In The Hat hat and painted a pink ribbon on her cheek. 

Jan Simonetti spent months walking three miles a day, sometimes up bleacher steps, to prepare for Saturday’s race — all while enduring chemotherapy. 

Simonetti, a retired state trooper from Arkansas, finished that treatment a month ago. 

Her goal was a time under 45 minutes. With some jogging along the way, she beat that goal by three minutes. 

“I’m going to do it again,” she said of the event. 

On several street corners along the routes were bands and people cheering. 

“It’s just awesome how many people come out and support us,” she said. 

Reach Jennifer Pignolet at [email protected] or on Twitter @JenPignolet. 

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