Lord Sun
05-30-2004, 11:28 AM
Novacek to help host rip-roaring fund-raiser
BY PATTI VANNOY, WORLD-HERALD
June Novacek probably won't corner any of her 3,000 guests next weekend to wax poetic about cows - she doesn't particularly like them.
But don't take that to mean she's not promoting beef as part of a healthy diet - one-third the mission of the 2004 Cattlemen's Ball of Nebraska.
"It's just that I'm on the high horse about cancer," said the Brady woman who will share hosting duties Saturday with her husband, J.P., her son Jay, a former Dallas Cowboys football player, and his wife, Leanne, at the ball that also aims to showcase rural Nebraska and raise money for health-care research.
She's got good reason. In the past 15 years, her immediate family has weathered nine diagnoses.
A sister and a niece have survived breast cancer; another sister endured it before succumbing to lung cancer. Her brother died of bone cancer, and one of his daughters died of ovarian cancer. Novacek's third sister has melanoma, and three nieces and nephews are collectively battling a cancerous liver, chest cavity, lymph nodes and skin.
Though Novacek and her four children have thus far avoided the trend, the grandmother of seven is not ignoring it.
"When you don't feel good, that's the first thing that comes to your mind," she said. "You almost can't get away from it."
And she's welcoming 3,000 guests to the Upper 84 Ranch, just south of Brady, Neb., for a full Saturday of hot air balloon rides, art shows, a raffle for a new Chevrolet Colorado, silent and live auctions, a rodeo, clay shooting, country musician Ty England and beef tenderloin.
All is planned with the hope of raising $200,000 for cancer research, said general chairman Gerald Brown of Brady. Whatever amount is raised, 90 percent will go to the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Eppley Cancer Center in Omaha and the rest will benefit local health care.
Planning has been a hard, yearlong haul, Brown said last week while fetching a truckload of wood chips from Grand Island to hold down dust under the bar tent.
The 25 committee chairmen and other volunteers - all of whom must buy their own ticket for the event - also have spent the last three months moving entire hills and converting a cow trail to a two-lane road.
The tents will arrive Monday, said Brown, who also has a strong family history of cancer and beat his own prostate cancer almost 30 years ago. After tents will come tables and chairs, generators, telephone lines, a sound system, stage, vendors and, finally, guests all set to drink and dance.
"I'm a survivor for a number of years now," Brown said, "so I hope I can survive long enough to pull this off."
BY PATTI VANNOY, WORLD-HERALD
June Novacek probably won't corner any of her 3,000 guests next weekend to wax poetic about cows - she doesn't particularly like them.
But don't take that to mean she's not promoting beef as part of a healthy diet - one-third the mission of the 2004 Cattlemen's Ball of Nebraska.
"It's just that I'm on the high horse about cancer," said the Brady woman who will share hosting duties Saturday with her husband, J.P., her son Jay, a former Dallas Cowboys football player, and his wife, Leanne, at the ball that also aims to showcase rural Nebraska and raise money for health-care research.
She's got good reason. In the past 15 years, her immediate family has weathered nine diagnoses.
A sister and a niece have survived breast cancer; another sister endured it before succumbing to lung cancer. Her brother died of bone cancer, and one of his daughters died of ovarian cancer. Novacek's third sister has melanoma, and three nieces and nephews are collectively battling a cancerous liver, chest cavity, lymph nodes and skin.
Though Novacek and her four children have thus far avoided the trend, the grandmother of seven is not ignoring it.
"When you don't feel good, that's the first thing that comes to your mind," she said. "You almost can't get away from it."
And she's welcoming 3,000 guests to the Upper 84 Ranch, just south of Brady, Neb., for a full Saturday of hot air balloon rides, art shows, a raffle for a new Chevrolet Colorado, silent and live auctions, a rodeo, clay shooting, country musician Ty England and beef tenderloin.
All is planned with the hope of raising $200,000 for cancer research, said general chairman Gerald Brown of Brady. Whatever amount is raised, 90 percent will go to the University of Nebraska Medical Center's Eppley Cancer Center in Omaha and the rest will benefit local health care.
Planning has been a hard, yearlong haul, Brown said last week while fetching a truckload of wood chips from Grand Island to hold down dust under the bar tent.
The 25 committee chairmen and other volunteers - all of whom must buy their own ticket for the event - also have spent the last three months moving entire hills and converting a cow trail to a two-lane road.
The tents will arrive Monday, said Brown, who also has a strong family history of cancer and beat his own prostate cancer almost 30 years ago. After tents will come tables and chairs, generators, telephone lines, a sound system, stage, vendors and, finally, guests all set to drink and dance.
"I'm a survivor for a number of years now," Brown said, "so I hope I can survive long enough to pull this off."