By Emily Williams
A few weeks after Jim Dunaway and his fellow JOX Roundtable hosts decided to join the Real Men Wear Pink campaign, the evening news co-anchor for WIAT 42 received news that his long-time friend Ruth Perkins of Texas had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
“It means the world to me that I get to be a part of this and raise awareness for breast cancer, especially when I will have a close friend experiencing the aftermath of treatment,” Dunaway said.
His relationship with breast cancer doesn’t rest solely in his friend’s struggle with the disease, he said. Over the years, he has experienced diagnosis scares for various family members, most notably his wife.
Everyone has been touched in some way by breast cancer, Dunaway said; even those who haven’t experienced the disease or a scare can feel its weight.
“I have a daughter who is 15 years old and you know that a relationship between a father and his daughter is unlike anything,” he said. “I feel that breast cancer is a disease that really hits home for men because it has the ability to affect those people who are most important to a man: his mother, his wife and his daughter.”
Dunaway and his co-hosts, Ryan Brown and Lance Taylor, are teaming up to participate in the Real Men Wear Pink campaign.
“Everyone is really revved up about this,” Dunaway said. “We’re just hoping we can get our hands on enough pink to last the month.”
Dunaway describes Taylor as Roundtable’s resident “GQ” man, whose trendy sense of style will easily accommodate the task at hand.
“After the show I usually head over to the news station, so it’ll be easy to throw on a pink tie,” Dunaway added. “The one we’re really worried about is Brown.”
Dunaway has a back-up plan that he’s saving for himself in case the river of pink men’s clothing runs dry.
“I don’t have a lot of it, but I am thinking about dying a little patch of what hair I have left,” he said, pulling at some strands at the back of his neck.
If that doesn’t pan out, Dunaway admitted he has always wanted to pierce an ear and would gladly don a pink earring to help spread awareness for a cause that is close to his heart.
