LOOSE CREEK - As the first day of deer season was well underway on Saturday, a group of area women gathered together for a special evening. While there would be dinner and dancing this was not your typical girl's night out, but a Doe's Night Out - The "Breast" Party in Town.
More than 420 women packed into the Loose Creek Community Center, beginning at 6 p.m. Some wore the pink T-shirts created for the event, which included a silent auction along with a simultaneous breast self-exam.
"Tonight is about celebrating life with your friends," said Jenny Samson Morgan, a breast cancer survivor, who organized the event. "It's about having a great time and not worrying about treatments and everybody together enjoying each other."
Around 8 p.m., Samson Morgan along with a group of health care professionals, showed women how to do a breast self exam, with the goal of making all women aware of their importance in the early detection of breast cancer.
That's how Samson Morgan, 36, felt her lump in January of this year and later learned it was stage II Ductal Carcinoma. After a double mastectomy at Women's and Children's Hospital in Columbia, she started chemotherapy in March at Harry S. Truman Memorial VA Hospital in Columbia. During this time, she chronicled the ups and downs of her journey in a blog, www.jennymorgan.me, and one of her entries was reposted by The Huffington Post, a national blog.
She began to hear from other women locally, across the country and even from London on her Facebook page, and she realized how her story could touch others.
"I found a sense of purpose in trying to educate other women about breast health," she said.
After she completed her chemotherapy in July, she decided to try and break the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest group of women performing a simultaneous breast self exam. At that time the record was 380, set in 2009 in Poland.
"I have been in contact with Guinness since July, when I was given a claim ID number and guidelines on how to go about breaking the record," she said. "I knew it would be a challenge but also a great opportunity to get a whole bunch of women together for some fun and education on breast health."
"As soon as I reserved the venue, friends started calling and volunteering to help out and it all came together," Samson Morgan said.
Helping from the beginning were her friend Kay Holterman as well as her aunt, Darlene Massman, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, too.
"Coming from a family who has dealt with cancer and loss and survivors this event means a lot," said Abbey Luebbert. "When my cousin Jenny was diagnosed, it changed a lot of people's lives and then my aunt was diagnosed, too. To see all these people come together to support our family and others dealing with cancer means a lot."
Samson Morgan was raised in Westphalia and attended Fatima High School. She and her husband, James, have two children, Millie, 2, and Carson, 4. She shared her experience with breast cancer in the September/October issue of HER Magazine. By then, a web site had been created for ticket sales and to keep women informed.
Through word of mouth and her social media campaign, the effort kept snowballing and gained momentum.
In the end, Samson Morgan estimates 425 tickets were sold (at $25 each) and, after expenses, expects to donate $7,000 to the Community Breast Care Project.
"I had received money from the Community Breast Care Project and I realized how these organizations could impact women going through their treatments," she said.
They were also set to break the record, too.
"I would log into my Guinness account about once a week and found out that we had just gotten the approval message from them saying that our plans to break the record were approved," she said. "Everything was falling into place."
Then there was a snag. A few weeks before the event, Samson Morgan logged on to check in and there was a surprise.
"Instead of seeing the current record listed at 380, I see this: The largest simultaneous self-examination for breast cancer consisted of 971 participants and was organized by VPS Healthcare LLC, at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, UAE on October 15, 2014.
"My heart sank. My mind went to the T-shirts that were printed with "World Record' on them and all of the tickets have event codes so women could look up their world record.
"But just as fast as the wind went out of my sails, I remembered why I wanted to do this in the first place. It would definitely be cool to have the bragging rights of having a world record, but this event is about getting my friends to do self-breast exams," she said.
She also realized 971 women in Abu Dhabi became more familiar with their own breasts.
"Sadly, statistics show that 121 of those women will have breast cancer in their lifetime. Finding breast cancer early saves lives. That's what this event is all about."
Angela Bax contributed to this story.