[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 130 (Friday, September 25, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S10975]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NATIONAL CANCER AWARENESS

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise to address two matters that are 
of importance to me. The first is the issue of national cancer 
awareness.
  Mr. President, for the next 3 days, hundreds of thousands of cancer 
survivors, families, care givers, and friends, whose lives have been 
affected by cancer will join together in this city for an event called 
``The March: Coming Together to Conquer Cancer.''
  Yesterday, other Members of this body and I had an opportunity to 
place a large star on our respective States to represent special 
persons in our lives who have been touched by cancer.
  I had the pleasure and honor on behalf of my wife, Nancy, to place a 
star on my State of Alaska for the late Judge Lester Gore, my wife's 
father. He was a remarkable pioneer in our State. In 1912, Judge Gore 
moved to Juneau after graduating from law school and established an 
impressive record as a young deputy district attorney. He was 
recognized in that effort in 1932 by President Hoover's appointment to 
serve as a Federal judge for the Territory of Alaska, serving the first 
judicial district in Nome.
  In serving as a Federal judge in the far reaches of western Alaska in 
the aftermath of the gold rush, Judge Gore traveled from village to 
village hearing various cases and judging on the merits. He used every 
mode of transportation from dog team to the former cutter Bear, 
bringing justice to rural Alaska. He was instrumental in both creating 
legal precedent and shaping the legal history of our State. Later in 
his career he worked as an attorney in Ketchikan, and died in 1965 of 
cancer. He had many accomplishments but none more important to me than 
fathering a daughter, Nancy, who later was good enough to accept my 
proposal of marriage.

  In addition, I was pleased in my own personal case to recognize my 
mother, who died of cancer, leukemia, in Alaska in 1956, having spent 
her entire career in the area of education. She was the longest 
standing sixth grade teacher in Ketchikan, Alaska.
  To move on, for more than 20 years now, my wife, Nancy, has worked 
with Alaskan women to encourage the establishment of a breast cancer 
center starting in Fairbanks, Alaska. She and a group of women 
initiated the Breast Cancer Detection Center for the purpose of 
offering free mammograms to women in the remote areas of Alaska, 
regardless of their ability to pay. I am proud to say that the center 
now serves about 2,500 women a year and provided screenings to more 
than 25,000 Alaska women in 81 villages throughout the State.
  To help fund these efforts of the Fairbanks center, each year my wife 
has sponsored a fishing tournament to raise money for the operation of 
the facility and to purchase units. Interestingly enough, over the last 
5 years they have raised over $1 million in this effort. They now 
operate a permanent facility in Fairbanks, as well as a mobile 
mammogram unit that travels the highways of Alaska providing free 
breast cancer examinations for the women along the highway system. It 
looks like a big armored car. More recently, they have purchased a 
smaller unit called Molly. Molly is designed to go in aircraft to fly 
out to the villages that are not connected by any road, and by river 
barge down the rivers of the interior.
  So I commend those who are responsible for this effort in my State, a 
group of women who have taken it upon themselves to do something about 
this disease, this killer disease which affects all of us. It is 
anticipated that 40 percent of us will get some form of cancer during 
our lifetimes. We have had a figure of about 1.5 million Americans 
being diagnosed this year.
  Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join with me in taking part in 
the activities here in Washington, D.C., with The march, thereby 
demonstrating our commitment to end cancer forever.

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