Adrian Elkins fired the shot to start the first race, and now his family is on the run to keep it going.

Elkins was a fit 19-year-old college student from McMinnville in 2002 when he was diagnosed with liver cancer. He and his family didn't know that having contracted hepatitis B as a baby put him at greater risk for liver cancer.

He died within a year, but not before starting the Answer to Cancer race to raise awareness and money for prevention, research, education and treatment of the diseases and associated illnesses.

His family has continued the race, which will be held for the third time on Saturday in McMinnville.

"It kind of makes us remember him -- not the 10 months he was sick, but the spirit he had," sister Tara Darrow said by telephone from Seattle.

Darrow, 29, brother Chris Elkins, 37, of Sherwood and sister Shannon Morris, 35, of Mahwah, N.J., take the lead, but the whole family pitches in to put on the race. That includes their parents, Edward and Judy Elkins, and brother Miguel Elkins, 24, along with a team of aunts, uncles and cousins in McMinnville.

They are "the feet on the street," as Darrow calls them. They pass out brochures, put up fliers around town and lend a hand on race day.

Darrow knows that family members sometimes respond to cancer by pulling away from one another. The diagnosis of cancer in a young man who just weeks before had run the most difficult legs of the Hood to Coast run hit the Elkins family hard.

"We had a day or so of, 'This is going to rip our family apart,' " Darrow said. But disbelief and bitterness didn't take center stage, she said, because her ill brother set a different tone.

"When he was sick, he was focused on getting better," Chris Elkins said. "And when it was clear he wouldn't, he turned his focus to this."

"This" is the race and what it could do to help others avoid his fate. The race has drawn the close family even tighter, Darrow said.

She remembers sitting at her brother's bedside in the hospital when he told her about his idea for the race. "Oh, I don't know if we have the time or energy," she told him.

"No," he insisted, "I have it all planned out."

Organizing the first

Within a week he had a database of potential donors. In six weeks the race was held, and 240 people turned out, raising about $24,000, Darrow said. One week and one day later, Adrian Elkins died.

Chris Elkins said he and his sisters understand that because of emotions or their own troubles, not everyone in the family can help out in the same way or to the same degree. But the three find that their efforts sometimes can feel almost therapeutic, a way to keep thinking of their dead brother -- and working together -- in a positive, evolving way.

Each had a different relationship with him, and at key times they can recall a conversation that gives them an idea of what he would have liked, Chris Elkins said.

After the first race, family members sat down to decide whether they would do it again. They wanted his legacy to build, and the suggestion arose to rename the race "Adrian's Answer to Cancer." But Morris quickly recalled that the idea came up when she talked with him that summer. He told her, "No way. I'm not the only one with this cancer."

Raising money

Last year, about 220 people participated and again about $24,000 was raised. In addition, more people learned about liver cancer, hepatitis B -- with its high prevalence among those of Asian descent -- and other risks, Chris Elkins said.

The Elkins family knew that Adrian had hepatitis B when they adopted him as a baby from India, but they didn't learn about its risks and the value of regular screening for cancer.

Sometimes Darrow gets asked about all the work that goes into putting on the race. She's newly married and works as a public relations specialist for a timber and lumber company. Morris is the mother of children ages 5, 3 and 1, and oversees a marketing agency. Chris Elkins is the father of children 6 and 3, and an operations manager for Columbia Sportswear.

But, Darrow tells people, "If you had met my brother, you would know why we do this."

They've formed a foundation, answered calls for speaking engagements, started other smaller scale fundraisers and added two other run/walk events with partners this year.

"It's almost taking on a life of its own," Chris Elkins said.

Other races

The LiveRight race with the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University, held in May in San Francisco, drew about 600 people and raised about $50,000, Darrow said. The B Part of the Answer race with the Hepatitis B Foundation will be held in September in Mahwah.

"That's what Adrian wanted us to do, to spread our message as far as we could," Darrow said.

In the days after the race in McMinnville, Chris Elkins' thoughts turn to the anniversary of his brother's death and then to the race.

He and his sisters don't dwell on the sadness, finding instead that the longing for their brother "fires us up for the next year."

Maya Blackmun: 503-294-5926; mayablackmun@news.oregonian.com