Retired Officers Walk across Texas for Cancer Patients

TYLER — Retired Tyler police officer Allan Crosby and his sister, Audrey Crosby Spies, a retired Bowling Green, Ky., and former Tyler police officer, plan to walk across Texas this spring in memory of their sister and to raise money to help East Texas cancer patients. Working with East Texas Medical Center, they plan to start their walk on April 1 on the Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas state line near Atlanta, Texas, and walk 857 miles during April and part of May to El Paso. The walk, called �Cops Crushing Cancer,� is in memory of the Crosbys� sister, Jacqueline Crosby Mazzola, a retired Dallas police officer, who died in 2010 of colon cancer. Mazzola told her family to look for change on the street as a sign that she was dropping pennies from heaven for them to help cancer patients. Crosby says they are asking walkers to get pledges of one penny per mile.

All money raised from the walk will go to ETMC�s Cancer Institute Remembrance Fund. The fund, which is coordinated through the East Texas Medical Center Foundation, assists cancer patients and the community through patient support programs, such as retreats and support groups, cancer screenings, advancement of cancer programs and services and assistance to patients with special needs. Crosby hopes retired and active law enforcement officers as well as cancer survivors will join them as they pass through their county and walk with them. They plan to use their Facebook page, under Cops Crushing Cancer, to update walkers as to when they will be in their area.

The walk will begin in Cass County on State Highway 155 and turn onto U.S. Highway 80 to travel to Dallas. Walkers will travel through Dallas-Ft. Worth and take routes north of Midland to reach El Paso. They are staying off main interstates so the trip will be safer for the walkers. To make a donation by check, you can send your tax-deductible gift to the ETMC Foundation, Cancer Institute Remembrance Fund, P. O. Box 6400, Tyler, TX 75711. For more information on the walk, you can contact Crosby at 903-245-9004.