Raising Awareness

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Melissa Longing is honest about one of her reasons for spending hours planning the Conway Alzheimer's Walk each year.

"I just told my sister-in-law that the reason I do the walk and that I'm so involved in it is because if I don't do something, I will get angry. Why did this happen to my daddy at 59? Why did my motherin-law die of something that her mother and her grandmother had?"

Longing also wants to raise awareness of the disease that robs people of their memory and theirpersonalities, leaving them a shell of the person they once were and ultimately taking their lives.

"I do want them to find a cure, or I do want them to at least find a way to prolong the best part of life," she said.

The fourth annual Alzheimer's Walk will be held rain or shine at 8:45 a.m. Saturday at Toad Suck Park, on the Perry County side, beginning with registration at 8 a.m.

Longing said she's lost two loved ones to the disease - her father, Jim Montgomery, who died on Sept. 20, 2003, at age 67, and her mother-inlaw, Louise Longing Graham, who was diagnosed three years later on the date her father died.

Longing's mother-in-law, who died in June at 84, was always afraid she would get Alzheimer's disease, Longing said.

"She was her mother's caregiver, and she always told me, "I hope I never get Alzheimer's.' She was a sweet, sweet lady."

Longing's father was a laid-back, happy man before the disease crept up on him, she said.

"Whenever I think about him now, I remember him walking down the street with that long stride and that smile on his face. My daddy always had a smile on his face, always," Longing said.

The disease he died with in 2003 at age of 67 took that spark.

"One of the saddest things was, we took a picture before he left the home of him and the grandkids, and he wasn't smiling at all, and he had that far-off look in his eyes," she said.

Longing will be 51 years old on Friday, Oct. 2.

Family history of Alzheimer's disease is a risk factor, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

"It is kind of scary to me, because my mom says there was something wrong with my dad for at least five years before he was diagnosed," she said.

The realization that something serious was wrong with her father came after he had two car wrecks that were his fault within two months, Longingsaid, "and one was because he couldn't decide when he should go or when he shouldn't."

"We tricked him into going to a neurologist," Longing said.

After giving him some quizzes, the doctor immediately told the family he had early onset Alzheimer's.

"She told us to take the keys away from him, at 59, which was extremely difficult," Longing recalled.

She said after he died, she and her family participated in Alzheimer's walks in Little Rock, and after the second year, Longing decided Conway was big enough for its own.

"I said, 'Hey, we're going to do this.' I got a lot of people together, and I had a good committee, and Coach Frank Broyles came down," she said.

Broyles' wife died of Alzheimer's disease in 2004.

About 350 people participated in last year's walk, andLonging said this year's already has more teams.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel will be this year's honorary chairman, and there will be a special tribute to the late Anne Pressly, a Little Rock television reporter who was murdered in 2008 and was chairwoman of the Conway Alzheimer's Walk in 2007.

Activities include face painting for children and a cake walk. The walk itself is just a path, Longing added.

"I just make a little path around the park and come straight back. It's very, very short. It's not like you do so many laps. We just get out there and have a good time," Longing said.

"We have great door prizes - the community helps me with that," she said.

All proceeds will go to Alzheimer's Arkansas, which provides programs and services primarily for caregivers, Longing said.

"When my daddy was diagnosed, nobody could tell me what was going to happen," Longing said, adding that she only learned about Alzheimer's Arkansas after his death.

There are several Alzheimer's walks in the state, including one in Fairfield Bay on Saturday, Oct. 31, Longing said.

Teams have been raising money for the Conway walk for months, but Longing said individuals may walk for free or pay $25 to get a T-shirt. There is still time to form a team, Longing said. Team preregistration will be 2-7 p.m. Wednesday at The Carpet Center, 564 Harkrider St.

"The more people the absolute better. It just raises an awareness," she said.

For more information, e-mail Melissa@thecarpetcenter.net or call (501) 733-2457.

- tkeith@ arkansasonline.com

River Valley Ozark, Pages 141, 151 on 09/20/2009