By Kathryn Skelton,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Craig Davis went to the emergency room six years ago with a stabbing pain from one side of his stomach to the other.

The diagnosis: leukemia.

Instead of leaving the next morning on a family trip to Washington, D.C., as planned, he spent the week in a hospital.

It’s that experience and what he felt the first time he walked a “survivor’s lap” at the Relay for Life – “so good and so accepted I just couldn’t stop talking about it” – that spurred him to help plan this year’s event.

Davis, 52 and cancer-free, still hasn’t recovered from a bone marrow transplant and treatments. He gets easily winded and his feet hurt from nerve damage – it will take everything to walk that single lap around the track again – but he survived.

When he gets low, he has to remember that.

“I would not be here today if it weren’t for the volunteers who get money for research,” Davis said. “I have to give something back because I’m living.”

The American Cancer Society’s annual local walk kicks off Friday, June 17, at 6 p.m. at Lewiston High School. For 18 hours, relay participants will walk, remember loved ones, celebrate successes and entertain each other.

This year’s event has a beach theme.

Davis is in charge of building a sandbox for kids.

He’s also scored a LifeFlight helicopter for Saturday morning; it’ll land and people can peek inside.

Also Saturday, Spider-Man, McGruff the crime dog and “Polyp,” a costumed man promoting colon cancer screening, will make appearances. Of the last, Davis said, laughing: “I have no idea what that guy’s going to look like.”

A technical consultant before he got sick, Davis said he’s used a lot of his old business contacts to raise money for donations and grills, lights and milk for the relay.

“People are very receptive to this, which has me even more excited,” he said. “I tell you, people are giving like a son of a gun.”

The Lewiston-based event, one of 16 statewide, raised $40,000 last year and attracted 800 people. Society spokeswoman Sue Clifford said the goal this year is $50,000 and close to 1,000 people.

Last year, the Maine events raised almost $1 million for research and programs nationwide. In Maine, the programs have volunteers driving people with cancer to doctors’ appointments and teaching them how to apply makeup and hairpieces.

Two research projects, one on breast cancer and one on skin cancer, are taking place at Jackson Lab in Bar Harbor.

Davis has raised money as a solo participant in the Relay for Life since 2001. This year, he formed an all-family team for the first time with his daughter, Kate Saunders.

Saunders is also a volunteer on the planning committee. “I’ve noticed a smile on his face,” since her dad got involved, she said. It’s given him something positive to focus on.

It has been five years since his transplant and it will likely be another five or six before he feels well, Davis said. But it’s OK, he added. It’s all about the attitude.

He’s got big plans for next year’s relay, saying, “I have a whole bunch of time. I’m one of those that’s a stickler for details.”

Those plans are under wraps for now, at least until next week’s walk is in the books.

“I think it’ll be a heck of a turnout,” Davis said. “If it’s nice sunny weather, maybe some will come in bikinis. Too bad we couldn’t get the Patriots’ cheerleaders … hey, that’s a thought.”