This past Friday we had our first annual East Carroll Parish Relay for Life. It was a huge success and y'all were a big part of that. I hope this little photo journal will help y'all feel like you were there.

Hugs,
Shellie

This is me with the MC for the evening and my very good friend, Mike Terry from KJLO 104 in Monroe, LA. Thanks for coming, Mike!

The opening ceremonies were very special. In this picture Cathy Brown, a cancer survivor herself, is presenting an award to the oldest survivor present: Rosa Lee Land. Oops! I didn't get a good pic of the youngest survivor, but congratulations to little Craig Winstead.

Here are a happy group of survivors about to take the honorary VICTORY lap to officially begin the Relay walk!

And this would be the All Things Southern team kicking things off with our first lap, or at least some of us--there are some stragglers here and there that didn't make the picture. I reckon they were "saving themselves" for the wee hours of the morning. Yeah...we'll say that. *grin*

This is where y'all come in! I promised you a map depicting the names of all the porchers that sent in their contributions and I want you to know that you were there! I'm sorry you can't actually see your names, but I'm hoping you'll trust me. That's the love of my life on the far left with our daughter Jessica and my sweet friend Mike on the right with Phil's mom and my mother-in-law Lucy sitting down. MawMaw Lucy is a cancer survivor, too!

These happy ATS workers, left to right, are BeLynda and Tricia. Thanks, ladies! (Y'all notice how cute the ATS booth is please. *grin* We had gators and moss and frogs and fishing poles and... you get the idea.

Could I have a drum roll? This is Kristin who slaved over the Smoothie counter ALL night! It was a hot and sticky job and I owe her bigtime! Thanks, Kristin!!!

"DO we have TEA?" I'm saying..."Oh, yeah!!! We have tea, tea and more tea..."Special thanks again to Luzianne Tea for donating the smoothies and the tea bags and Patti Shivers from the Lake Providence Country Club for making all that tea for me so I could tend to a multitude of other details.

This is Jessica, Carey, Phillip and his friend Jeremy. Phillip brought another friend in from college who won the night's talent contest. Where are you Zach...practicing perhaps?

Some happy young walkers making a few laps for their teams.

This is a sister act. Tiffany is on the left. She worked in the booth, too. Thanks, Tiff!

Check out these youngs convicts. A person could "arrest" someone for a donation. It was up to the convict to wait out their sentence of post bail with their own donation.

Do you recognize this Jail House Mama? That's none other than "Big C", Mama Charlotte herself. Hillary's friend, Corey, had Nanee arrested on charges of dressing sloppy. That perenially put together mom of mine was appalled! *grin* Go, Corey!

One of the rockers ATS auctioned off went to these happy winners from Hamburg, Arkansas.

These are a few of the booths. This is the "Fishers of Men" from the Church of Christ.

Delta Bank hard at work.

Now, this is the Sheriff's booth and they put him right by me. I ask you, do you think they were trying to say something?
Nan Hopkins C.P.A and her helpers.

The jumping center was a big hit with the little ones.

As was the painting booth!

Check out the wrestlers. My friend Rhonda and I were gonna wrestle but we never got around to it. Really--we were...

We had some fantastic talent to entertain us once the night got underway. Here is my sister Cyndie's daughter, Hillary Guenard, singing "Did You Know You Were My Hero?" Great job, Hillary! (Watch out Wynonna!)

I'm sorry you couldn't hear our local gospel great, Percy Threats. He's terrific. I've known Percy for a long time and I consider it an honor. Thanks, Percy!

I filed an official protest with this group: way too much talent for one family! In the middle is is Olivia Whatley with her uncle Danny Terral and his sister and her aunt, Edna Gattle on the left. Seriously, their harmony is beautiful and I'm not jealous...okay, I am jealous, but I'm working on it.

This young lady goes to my church. Her name is Samantha Patrick and she did a fine job entertaining the crowd.

The Riverbend Women's Choir lit up the stadium with their foot-stomping, body swaying gospel music. And this is where I must apologize to the other singers that performed. It was hard to be everywhere at once with my camera and I didn't realize I missed some of you. My apologies to the Baptist Children's Choir, ECDC, Jonathan Wiggins and Kathryn Hopkins. Y'all were terrific, too!

The night wears on and the walkers keep walking...

More happy walkers stop to give me a smile.

Here are some more members of the ATS team. Hmmm...I wonder where Rhonda and Jessica are?

Oh!!! Here they are resting at the ATS booth--and with the Krispy Kreme box, too! Hey, up and at it girls.

One last pic. Here's Mike with Kelly Prine, the Chairman of the night's event. My hat goes off to Kelly and her co-chair, Trisha Parker. Our first year relay raised more than $30,500, a tremendous success by anyone's measure! It took a lot of hard work and I'm sure everyone else is as tired as I am...but it was worth it. See you next year! *grin*