How St. Charles schools raised $1 million for cancer research

It was supposed to be about uniforms. Bake some cookies. Wash a few cars. Use the cash to buy outfits that would make the judges' eyes dazzle at the drill team competitions.

Now, 22 years later, more than 100 pairs of legs will kick skyward for charity pledges at St. Charles North High School Friday night, marking more than $1 million raised for cancer research and patient care.

St. Charles had only one high school in 1994. Buck Drach was its head football coach. He didn't know a whole lot about drill teams and dance uniforms. But he'd had all the experience he never wanted with cancer.

His wife, Rose, a teacher at the high school, was two years into a fight with a rare form of sinus cancer at age 30. When the drill team raised more money than it needed for uniforms, Drach suggested putting the excess funds to work finding a cure for cancer.

"Back then, if cancer didn't affect you a lot of people didn't believe in it," Drach said. "But the students knew my wife. When they decided to give the money to the American Cancer Society, it said a lot about what was going on in the school at the time. We had a lot of teenagers coming up with ideas to raise money for people who were less fortunate.

"The kids at that age are usually so much into themselves. That they would take the time and effort to do something for cancer really meant a lot to us. We were amazed and really grateful for what they did." Five years later, in 1999, Drach found himself still involved with the fundraising effort. But his efforts from then on were not in support of curing his wife's illness. They were in her memory. Rose Drach succumbed to cancer at age 36. The tears still come for Buck Drach when he thinks about it. He still writes a donation check to the St. Charles Kick-a-Thon fundraiser for cancer every year in his wife's name.

"She was a fighter and a heck of a teacher," Drach said. "Everyone who has ever participated in this school effort, they are all one in a million people. It's the hope that the one cookie they sell, or that glass of lemonade, puts it over the mark, and we find a cure." If Rose Drach's illness and death made cancer real for the St. Charles school community, the number of coaches, parents and students who have battled cancer in the district since then has kept that reality at the forefront of the fundraising effort.

Breast cancer always seemed to be lurking in the shadows of Nancy Prentiss' life. The disease killed both of her grandmothers. Her mom had battled it as well. She was evaluating the new crop of drill team tryouts when she got the call from her doctor letting her know it was her turn to fight. She's been cancer-free for the past six years.

"Cancer has hit us in the district pretty hard," Prentiss said. "We've had some drill team girls who are cancer survivors. Last year, a coach's mom lost her battle with cancer. I had it. So it really, for the most part, has touched everybody involved with this effort in some way for most of the time we've been raising money." Those personal stories have transformed the fundraising into a yearlong effort in the past 10 years. In Prentiss' first year of involvement, the Kick-a-Thon fundraiser raised about $20,000. Now the effort raises up to five times that in a single year. And it's not just parents writing checks.

Drill team members must recruit at least one new member for the kick line every year. The line is the culmination of the fundraising effort. Participants stand shoulder to shoulder and knock out 100 Rockette-style kicks, collecting pledged donations for each one. Drill team members also raise money outside grocery stores. They wash cars in the summer, even when school isn't in session. And two girls this year began a cookie-baking operation that's netted $700 so far with just sales in their neighborhood.

All that effort has brought the amount raised to $1 million this year, Prentiss' final year as drill team coach.

"It's great to go out on a milestone like this," Prentiss said. "It's hard to grasp the meaning of raising $1 million as a high school student or a coach. It's amazing what our community has done to support cancer patients and research. It's really become a great tradition. When I think about it, I just kind of stand back and say, 'Wow.' "