Kathy List has several good reasons to participate in the Relay for Life this weekend. They are the names of friends lost to cancer.
Six years ago, she went to a Relay for Life event because her sister-in-law, Clara, was walking. According to List, she got hooked and the next year she joined the Loving Spoonful team and has been an active member since.
“I was passionate about it because I had several friends who passed away from cancer in that time frame," she said. "They varied in age from a little boy to a 55-year-old woman."
In September 2014, she herself was diagnosed with cervical cancer and was treated with chemotherapy and radiation. Her last treatment was in January, 2015 and she is now in remission.
Inspired, she started a new team in 2015, Twisted Sisters, with family members and friends.
“We keep chugging along; hopefully we won’t have to do this for many more years,” she said.
List lives an active life; she has been involved with horses for 35 years and has trained them for 30 years. She started with quarter horses and thoroughbreds and taught English and Western pleasure riding. Then she specialized in miniature horses, which she showed in halter, driving and obstacle events. They’re really cute, she said. She retired from that business and at present her involvement consists of training two miniatures for a friend.
When she’s not living a healthy outdoor life, List works at EuroMed, a bandage manufacturer in Orangeburg, New York.
Kathy’s husband, John, is a member of a rod and gun club and they get away twice a year at a house owned by the club in Hankins, New York, on the Delaware River. Her experience there brings us her recipe for “camping potatoes” today.
Right now, she’s walking to get in shape for the relay. Some of that walking includes her dog Ginger, a shepherd-collie mix which belonged to a friend who rescued the canine. After the friend was first diagnosed with cancer, List took on the dog. Her friend later died of the disease.
List and her husband recently returned from a cruise exploring inland lower Alaska. “I loved it,” she said. “The scenery is just breathtaking and I guess the most remarkable (moment) was having bald eagles fly by in front of the glacier, close to me. I would definitely go back again.”
The trip was something she and her husband had always wanted to do; they talked about it, saved for it, and she said, “Let’s go.”
List’s sisters-in-law also went on the cruise: Brenda Kanis and her husband Keith from Lake Hopatcong, and Bennie Pearson and her husband Ron, from Spring Hill, Florida, along with Bennie’s daughter from Ohio, Sharon Carlton, who will be in the Relay for Life this weekend, too, as will Kanis.
It’s a tight-knit family that knows what’s important in life and wants to pay it forward.
Here is one of List’s favorite camping recipes to enjoy. It is a favorite recipe of her friends and family when they camp in Hankins on the Delaware River. List says she usually just eyeballs it, but was kind enough to provide measurements for the rest of us.
Don't forget to join List at the Relay for Life this Saturday, beginning at 5 p.m. and running to 4 a.m. Sunday.