September 8, 2006

Kathy LaTour to be featured speaker at upcoming Breast Cancer Awareness Luncheon

Breast cancer survivor and national speaker Kathy LaTour to share her personal journey at fundraising event benefiting The Breast and Bone Health Center at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands.

From left: For the 6 th Annual “In the Pink of Health Art & Soul” luncheon benefiting the Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Breast and Bone Health Center, event co-chairs Tracey O’Neal and Alison Henderson thank Judy Larson, Sr. V.P. of Private Banking at Woodforest National Bank for a generous Speaker Sponsorship. Larson is also the event’s underwriting chair and emcee. Breast cancer survivor and national speaker Kathy LaTour will share her personal journey during the event on Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 at 10:30 a.m. at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.

If you’re living with cancer, are a cancer survivor, or have loved someone with cancer, “One Mutant Cell,” will strike a familiar cord when its passages of humor mixed with emotion are told by Kathy LaTour as she chronicles her personal journey through breast cancer.

LaTour, who speaks to audiences across the country, will present her one-woman show, “One Mutant Cell,” about her life with cancer in a live journal format during the 6 th Annual “In the Pink of Health Art & Soul” luncheon benefiting the Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Breast and Bone Health Center on Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 at 10:30 a.m. at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.

“Cancer isn’t funny,” said Kathy LaTour, “but we experience so many bizarre things going through cancer that there is really a lot to laugh at. ‘One Mutant Cell’ grew out of the responses I have had while speaking around the country about living with and through cancer. It was always the funny things that people enjoyed the most. They liked the feeling of community, knowing that they were all laughing at some absurd thing that had happened to all of us– and it made them feel less isolated during the experience.”

I hope that ‘One Mutant Cell’ will not only help those living with cancer realize they are not alone, but will also help their friends, family and caregivers relate to their many, varied emotions.”

At the age of 36, LaTour underwent a modified radical mastectomy and chemotherapy for one malignant lymph node. Since her diagnosis with invasive breast cancer in 1986, she has been active in the survivor community in Dallas and nationally. Her book, The Breast CancerCompanion, which is based on interviews with more than 120 women and 75 men and health care professionals, was published by William Morrow in 1993 and resulted in LaTour becoming a nationally recognized speaker for both the survivor and the health care communities on issues related to cancer survivorship.

“When I performed the show at the Miraval Life Beyond Cancer Retreat last December, it made me feel great to hear the women’s responses. One woman said she couldn’t believe how I had captured her experience and how she found herself laughing and crying at the same time. That is the highest praise I can get. The idea that I have somehow helped someone going through this awful time to take a minute to see the craziness and insanity in a humorous way.”

Kathy LaTour, SMU lecturer and breast cancer survivor, will perform a one-woman-show called One Mutant Cell as the featured speaker at the 6 th Annual “In the Pink of Health Art & Soul” luncheon benefiting the Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Breast and Bone Health Center on Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 at 10:30 a.m. at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center.

LaTour was an active board member (now advisory board member) of Gilda’s Club North Texas, having served as its president in 1999. She was also instrumental in founding The Bridge Breast Center in Dallas, a unique coalition of breast cancer survivors and area health care professionals who are providing diagnosis and treatment to uninsured women who may have breast cancer. She served as president of The Bridge, which is a national model, from its inception in March 1992 until June 1994.

A writer and editor for more than 25 years, LaTour is currently a senior lecturer and an award-winning faculty member in Corporate Communications & Public Affairs at Southern Methodist University. Additionally, she serves as Consulting Senior Editor for CURE: Cancer, Updates, Research & Education, a national quarterly magazine serving the informed cancer patient. She received the Katie Award for Best Reporter Writing Portfolio for her work with the magazine in November 2002. Throughout her journalism career, LaTour has published more than 50 feature articles in newspapers and magazines from The Dallas Morning News to The National Observer.

Woodforest National Bank has proudly agreed to underwrite Kathy LaTour’s appearance fees. Judy Larson, Senior Vice President of Private Banking at Woodforest and the event’s Underwriting Chair and emcee, said, “We are happy to be the Speaker Sponsor this year and help educate our community about breast cancer and show support for those who have been affected by it. We know that our $5000 contribution is an investment in our community’s health and wellness.”

For more information about the “In the Pink of Health Art & Soul” luncheon, call Ann Wellman Wolford at the Memorial Hermann Foundation at 281-364-2660.