Beatrice Regner was recognized in last weekend’s Relay for Life of Foothills walk for having passed away just last year from cancer. “The slogan for Relay for Life,” said English teacher Carol Pettegrew, “is celebrate, remember, and fight back. Celebrate the people who are lucky enough to survive, remember the people we’ve lost, and fight back by raising money to find a cure.”

Regner, a Clark graduate from 2010, participated in the walk throughout her high school years. “Even her senior project was on Relay for Life,” Pettegrew said. “She had been a part of the club for all four years.”

“We walked a couple laps and took pictures, then started making our luminaries,” said Hoover junior Matthew Regner, Beatrice’s brother. ‘After that, we had the luminaria ceremony where my family and my sister’s best friends talked about my sister and the event, followed by the walking around the track for a couple laps.”

Regner also said that his sister’s first performance was at Relay, where she sang for her senior project. He said that Beatrice’s friends talked about her story and how they never expected she’d be on the other side of the fight. “The mood was sad but hopeful,” Regner said.

Beatrice Regner stayed in the hospital for a month before the doctors discovered she had a rare form of cancer called Hepatosplenic T-cell Lymphoma. “It was a bumpy ride, she got better sometimes and other times she had to go to the ICU,” Regner said. “The extensive amounts of chemotherapy led to a bone marrow transplant, which my other sister was a perfect match for.”

After that, Beatrice was allowed to come home for four days. Three weeks after there was a complication in her biopsy and Beatrice went into shock and later fell into a coma. “They thought it would be better to let her pass away by seeing her without the wires and medication,” said Regner, “but just naturally as if she were sleeping.”

Relay for Life is a series of events relating to the American Cancer Society. Clark Magnet’s Relay for Life Club students manned the Clark booth where kids come and play games as part of the activities. About 100 to 200 people per year participate in the walk for cancer annually with about 50 of them being current Clark students.

Junior Nanor Asadourian said that this experience is beneficial for everyone who attends. “Having worked at the harvest festival and Montrose farmers market, sold luminaries during school, and more Clark has raised about $1,500,” Asadourian said.

According to the American Cancer Society, this year Relay for Life of Foothills has raised around $45,000 so far as it contains 26 teams and 181 participants. To date, Relay for Life events have overall raised nearly $5 billion. The money raised goes out to the American Cancer Society in means of finding a cure. Pettegrew said that this organization helps people experiencing cancer by means of research and aid programs like programs that provide patients with rides to the hospital.

Sophomore Jasmine Mireasoo said that she participated in the walk because she had a couple family members die from cancer and she planned to do what she could to help the cause. Both the family and friends of Beatrice Regner and Jasmine Mireasoo paid their respects and did their part at the walk.