By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Over Labor Day, 1997 Union High School graduate Diana Mead journeyed from Cleveland, Ohio, to Virginia Beach, Va., to run in the Rock and Roll Half Marathon - 13.1 miles - as a member of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Team in Training.
She finished in two hours, 39 minutes on Sept. 4 - a personal best since it was her first race ever.
The 2001 Michigan State University graduate, who turned 26 on Sept. 19, achieved her $3,100 goal.
Also motivating Mead, daughter of Dalton and Judy Mead of Spruce Street, was the memory of her older brother, Dennis, who lost his battle with leukemia at 12 almost 23 years ago. Dennis was profiled in the Daily News in February 1982. He died that Oct. 8.
Due to extensive investment in research, Diana says the overall survival rate of leukemia patients has tripled in the last 40 years, from 14 percent in 1960 to more than 46 percent in 2003.
Despite these improvements, leukemia, a blood cancer, still remains the leading cause of death among children under age 20.
More than 20,000 participated overall.