by David Chapman
Staff Writer
In the courtroom and in life itself, events don’t always unfold as planned. It’s how people respond to adversity and focus on today, and not tomorrow, that’s important.
Those words of advice and more came from Ch. 12 anchor Donna Deegan, a cancer survivor, to around 30 members of the Jacksonville Women Lawyers Association during its November luncheon Wednesday.
“We can stress ourselves to oblivion these days,” said Deegan. “As professional women, we do that a lot.”
Deegan framed the discussion around her experiences with three bouts of breast cancer and her community efforts in creating The Donna Foundation and establishing the annual “26.2 with Donna: The National Marathon to Fight Breast Cancer.”
The foundation helps alleviate some of the financial stress Northeast Florida men and women accrue in fighting breast cancer. The marathon raises additional funds for research and support.
After being a goal-oriented Type A personality for so long, Deegan said she re-focused her priorities to better enjoy life and advised attendees to look into doing the same to potentially alleviate some of their daily stress.
Though a newscaster, Deegan said she does have ties to the legal profession. Her father was an attorney and she enjoyed watching him in the courtroom, she said, but didn’t choose to follow in his footsteps.
“I could never win an argument with him, let alone anyone else,” she joked. “I couldn’t do it for a million dollars.”
JWLA President Lindsay Tygart-Havice said Deegan’s message was positive and another in the line of educating and advising JWLA members on becoming more well-rounded inside and outside of the courtroom.
The stress management and health and wellness aspect of the discussion, said Tygart-Havice, was well received by the organization’s members.
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