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Students string bras across Purple People Bridge for fundraiser

Miami University senior Sarah Billstrom, shown leading off first base during a game earlier this year, is a member of the RedHawk's softball team which participated in the annual Bras Across the River, an event which focuses awareness on breast cancer. Billstrom's mother, Annette Towns, died of breast cancer two years ago.

Contributed photo from Miami University. Miami University senior Sarah Billstrom, shown leading off first base during a game earlier this year, is a member of the RedHawk's softball team which participated in the annual Bras Across the River, an event which focuses awareness on breast cancer. Billstrom's mother, Annette Towns, died of breast cancer two years ago.

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By Pete Conrad, Staff Writer Updated 7:22 AM Thursday, October 8, 2009

This is part of a month-long series on the battle against cancer in Butler County.

OXFORD — It was practically at the last minute that head coach Kelly Kovach Schoenly and her Miami University softball team heard about the annual Bras Across the Bridge fundraiser.

The RedHawks didn’t have much time to get involved in the annual event that focuses awareness on breast cancer.

They didn’t need much time. Or much of a push.

“A lot of the girls on the team have been touched by breast cancer, and other forms of cancer as well,” said Sarah Billstrom, a two-time All-Mid-American shortstop whose mother, Annette Towns, died of breast cancer in November of 2007.

Within a few days, on Sept. 25, the RedHawk coaches and players were helping to string the donated bras across the span of the Purple People Bridge which connects Cincinnati and Newport, Ky.

Their own contribution was 64 feet of bras and about $200 in contributions.

“It was rainy and not such a nice day,” said Billstrom, “but the girls had a great attitude. It was very enlightening and humbling for the team.

“We got our entire athletic department involved,” she said. “We got bras and $5 donations, and we took all of this down there Friday morning and helped string up the bras. It went all the way across the bridge and back. It was amazing.”

Billstrom said her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time in 2000. “She had a mastectomy and was in complete remission for five years. In her sixth year it came back again and it was in her lung.

“She knew her strength would rub off on other people,” Billstrom said. “Her courage changed other people’s lives ... She was really involved in getting people aware.”

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