Dan Wagner has volunteered for the Avera Race Against Cancer since its start in 1988. For most of the last 20 years, that’s meant helping with parking and traffic control for the fast-growing event.
He credits infectious leaders like his friend Jackie Haggar-Tuschen and volunteer coordinator Jean Snyders for encouraging him to get involved.
Dan continues to take part because he sees the impact.
“My wife’s been through breast cancer twice — diagnosed in 1997 and 2024,” Dan said. “Going through that with her got my whole family involved a lot more in the race. The strides they’ve made in treating cancer in those years is just amazing.”
Making Strides as a Family
Dan’s mom, Velma — known lovingly as “Blondie” — often walked in the race, traveling to Sioux Falls until a Mitchell race was started closer to home in Alexandria.
The race was one of many examples of community involvement for Blondie, who was active in the altar society at her church and was a lifetime member of the American Legion Auxiliary.
“My mother never met a stranger. She’s someone who could walk into a crowd of no one she’d ever met and strike up a conversation,” said Dan. “She was the most outgoing and social individual — generous to a fault.”
After Dan’s mom passed, part of her estate was left to the Avera Race Against Cancer to support patients and families served at the Avera Cancer Institute. In response to the gift, the Avera Foundation created a yard sign featuring Blondie’s name to be placed in the area where Dan always volunteers.
Dan hopes to inspire in his family the same spirit of volunteering and community giving that his parents instilled in him and his siblings.
Every year, Dan’s family puts together a team and walks in the Avera Race, and his wife Lynette and kids volunteer putting up signs and handing out packets.
“If there’s anything I can do, it’s pass on to my children and grandchildren how important it is to be involved in something like this,” Dan said. “Every one of us knows how terrible cancer is. Soon, with programs like the race and all the people who come out to help, we’ll get to a cure.”
We Race Every May
Learn more about the Avera Race and how you can get involved as a volunteer, participant or sponsor. Discover all the ways the Avera Foundation supports cancer care.
