After Barb Stauffer was diagnosed with stage-4 colon cancer in November 2013, a group of her friends organized a Relay for Life team in her honor. In June 2014, that team walked beside Stauffer in the event, said Kandy Hartzell, the team’s captain.

“And we all vowed we’d do it again this year and celebrate her not having cancer anymore,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “But that didn’t work out.”

A cancer survivor wearing a t-shirt that reads I

Stauffer died last August, Hartzell explained.

Friday night at Rock Chalk Park, Barb’s Colon Crusaders were back at it all the same, raising money to fight cancer and walking laps in Stauffer’s memory.

“It really is healing, emotional and beautiful,” Hartzell said.

Relay for Life is a national fundraising event from the American Cancer Society. The Douglas County Relay for Life is currently in its ninth year, said Bailey Marew, one of the event’s co-chairs. The event typically takes place at Lawrence High School’s track but was moved to Rock Chalk Park this year because inclement weather was in the forecast.

Leading up to the fundraiser, within their communities teams raise money, all of which goes towards cancer research and programs aimed at helping those impacted by the widespread disease, Marew said. During the relay itself, members of each team take turns walking laps on a track for 12 hours.

Kelly Cooper, of Lawrence, places lights in luminaries as others walk the track during the annual Relay for Life event Friday at Lawrence Sports Pavilion.

“One person from each team is on the track at all times,” she said. “It’s a way of honoring those who struggle with cancer. And you have to keep going until sunrise.”

This year more than 500 people in 64 teams participated in Lawrence, Marew said. By early Friday evening, the event already had raised more than $164,000 and was expected to exceed its goal of $170,000 by Saturday morning.

For Dot and Bud Johnson, a husband and wife duo of cancer survivors, Relay for Life is all about hope.

“It gives people encouragement to keep struggling and fight the best they can,” Dot Johnson said. “And it finances research and education, which is also hope.”

Six years ago, Dot Johnson was declared free of lymphoma, she said.

Bud Johnson said he is a survivor of skin cancer.

For the past five years, the couple has attended each Douglas County Relay for Life event.

“You see someone new every year that you didn’t even know had cancer,” Bud Johnson said.

Sylvia Bigsby, of Baldwin, waves to family below as she completes the survivor's lap during the annual Relay for Life event Friday at Lawrence Sports Pavilion. Bigsby has been a cancer survivor for three years.

“And some of them you knew and you prayed for, and it’s delightful to see them here as survivors and to know they made it,” Dot Johnson added.

Hartzell said her team has been sending out letters, emails and messages on social media since December, trying to raise money for the cause. And they’ve got no plans of slowing down.

“We have team shirts without a year for a reason,” she said. “We want to come back year after year.”