American Cancer Society’s ball takes on country theme
Lauren McCullough is a country girl.
“I grew up on a farm, I showed cows, we had chicken houses,” she says. “I am full-out country.”
Stands to reason that McCullough, chairwoman of the American Cancer Society’s “Starlight ‘n’ Spurs” Cattle Baron’s Ball, is down for a Western theme.
The event, set to begin at 6 p.m. Dec. 2, in the pavilion at Heifer International in Little Rock, will have fire pits and midway-style games like horseshoes and steer-roping — though these haybale steers won’t be stampeding. There will be music by Mary-Heather and the Sinners, who offers a mix of classic and modern country.
Cattle Baron’s Ball honoree Dr. Omar Atiq, an oncologist with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock, founded the Arkansas Cancer Clinic in Pine Bluff in 1991. The clinic closed in 2019 because of staffing shortages. In late 2020, amid the covid-19 pandemic, Atiq sent notices to nearly 200 patients about outstanding debts they no longer needed to pay.
The fundraising goal of this year’s Cattle Baron’s Ball is $650,000, matching the $650,000 in cancer patient medical debts Atiq forgave last year.
Early bird pricing is available, with tickets bought before Nov. 25 priced at $100 each or $150 for two. After Nov. 25, ticket prices will be $150 each or $200 for two.
McCullough doesn’t anticipate everyone who attends to dress the part of cowboy or cowgirl.
“But if you do, that’s awesome,” she says. “That’s the feel and the vibe.”
McCullough was chairwoman of
the event last year as well.
“We were virtual then and we combined with the Northeast Arkansas chapter in Jonesboro, so it was a little bit different,” McCullough says. “They asked me again this January to chair this year’s event.”
McCullough, a self-employed photographer, videographer, actress and television host, began her volunteer work with the American Cancer Society four years ago after a freelance photography assignment for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette led her to Relay for Life.
“There was a group of young professionals out there and it hit me at the right time and in the right mood and I said, ‘I want to be involved,’” she says.
The cause, after all, has personal meaning for her. Her father, Floyd Clark, died in 2017 just a year after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Money raised through the Cattle Baron’s Ball will support the American Cancer Society’s Community Transportation Grant program in Arkansas, which benefits patients who need help getting to and from their medical appointments.
“The American Cancer Society has a portion of funds that they give to individuals and organizations through grants, because we are all in this together,” McCullough says. “This is going to help people, and we don’t care who they are or what type of cancer they have or what ZIP code they live in.”
McCullough’s family was able to coordinate her father’s trips from his home in Mena to Little Rock for his cancer treatments, but she got a close-up look at the toll those regular, frequent trips can take.
“My mom was a schoolteacher and she could take off to get him to the doctor, and the school understood, but there’s a ripple effect,” she says. “She had to get a substitute, and then she decided to retire early.”
Her mother, her aunt and one of her father’s childhood friends provided most of the transportation and support for her father throughout his illness, but she knows many cancer patients across the state don’t have such strong networks. Many struggle to reach their doctor’s offices and hospitals from the farthest reaches in the state.
“It sounds cliche, but I can literally only imagine not being able to have a vehicle or a ride to a doctor’s appointment, much less something that is so significant and important as the radiation or chemo treatments these cancer patients need,” McCullough says. “My family was blessed with vehicles and transportation and whatnot.”
Transportation may not be the only worry a cancer patient has, of course, but it’s one that the American Cancer Society and its supporters can address.
“Whether it’s, ‘I don’t have a car,’ or ‘I’m rural,’ or ‘I can’t get off work,’ whatever it is, there are just things life throws at us,” McCullough says. “Then you’re also facing a diagnosis and you’re trying to get to the place that can help you.”
McCullough’s then-boyfriend, Warren, proposed during her father’s illness, and they decided to have a short engagement. Her father walked her down the aisle, leaving her with precious memories of him on that special day.
Patients who frequently have to miss or delay treatments or appointments because they don’t have adequate transportation can suffer alterations in the course of their disease or the outlook for their futures. For many of those patients, the American Cancer Society’s Community Transportation Grant program offers a gift of time.
“We had Christmas together that year, and I live and work in Little Rock so I would go visit him as often as I could when he was at CARTI,” McCullough says of the year her father was sick. “I’m so thankful for it.”