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Friends Cook Up Charity Event For Volunteer

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By DAVID SOMMER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 12, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - An area native known for pitching in at charity events is the beneficiary of a fundraiser Sunday at his family's ranch.

Friends of Mark Brown hope to raise more than $18,000 to help him pay medical bills for treatment of throat cancer, benefit organizer Chopper Davis said.

Whenever there is barbecue to be smoked or burgers to be flipped for a good cause, Brown has been there with spatula and fork in hand, Davis said.

"That's one of the reasons I think a lot of people have stepped up" to help Brown, Davis said.

"We figure he's probably cooked a half-million meals for nonprofits over the years."

Brown, who along with his father, Bud, works as a wetlands mitigator for developers throughout Pasco County, was diagnosed with throat cancer last year.

"These things happen," he said earlier this week.

Brown, 59, said he has completed radiation and chemotherapy treatments at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa and is scheduled to be tested next week to make sure the disease has not spread. He said he may have to undergo surgery.

His illness also prompted him to quit smoking, Brown said.

"They said either quit or you have a 100 percent chance of a relapse, and if I quit it's a 4 percent chance. So I said, 'I'll just quit,'

" he quipped.

Sunday's 1 p.m. fundraiser at Bud and Sandy Brown's Dusty Lane home will feature entertainment, prize drawings and a silent auction in addition to "mouthwatering barbecue" prepared by Mark Brown's longtime cooking partner, Gary Joiner, Davis said.

Joiner's barbecue pork and special sauce are staples at charity events countywide, Davis said.

Tickets are $20, and tax-deductible checks can be made out to the Sertoma Speech & Hearing Foundation.
Dusty Lane runs east off Little Road between Massachusetts Avenue to the north and Plathe Road to the south.

Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com.

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