Paying a 32-mile tribute across the sea

Paul Clinton

By paddling the 32 grueling sea miles from Catalina Island to the

Manhattan Beach Pier on Sunday, Mark Schulein hopes to offer an apt

tribute to an old friend.

At least that’s the spirit behind the Newport Beach resident’s

challenge to honor Suzanne Leider, who died earlier this month after

a decade-long battle with an uncommon and deadly cancerous tumor.

“It’s a testament to Suzie,” Schulein said. “It was amazing to

know what this woman was going through. You would never see it on

her.”

Schulein, who knew Leider back when the two attended the same

Newport Beach synagogue in the mid-1980s, watched his friend cope

with her illness before finally succumbing to it.

Leider died Aug. 8 of complications from synovial cell sarcoma at

the age of 35. She had been living in Napa Valley for the last year

of her life.

On Sunday, the 33-year-old Schulein and three other Newport Beach

men will take the rigorous journey as a part of the Catalina Classic,

a paddleboard race that has been held annually for more than 20

years.

Schulein will be joined by Keith Munemitsu, 35, Jack Hamilton, 26,

and Scott Lincoln, 43.

Munemitsu, who graduated with Leider from Newport Harbor High

School in 1985, said he also watched his friend keep an upbeat

attitude during the illness.

More than 300 cars joined in the funeral procession Aug. 12 for a

woman who found time to crack jokes from her hospital bed and

continued to cheer up friends and family despite her own dire

straits.

After graduating from Newport Harbor with a 4.0 grade-point

average, Leider collected a psychology degree from UCLA and went to

work as a nurse so she could “take part in the healing process,”

Munemitsu said.

On her road into the health-care profession, Leider felt soreness

in her right thigh after one of her regular jogs. Once a lump began

to appear at the location, Leider saw a doctor, who told her she had

a malignant tumor.

That was October 1992.

During her long battle with cancer, which included a handful of

painful surgeries and a string of debilitating radiation chemotherapy

doses, Leider founded the Sarcoma Alliance, a nonprofit group.

At the same time, Munemitsu founded Ocean of Hope, the alliance’s

main fund-raising group.

Participating in the paddling event will simulate Leider’s

situation in at least a psychological way, he said.

“When you’re paddling, you’re finding ways to go on,” Munemitsu

said. “We’re paralleling that to a cancer victim. That’s what they go

through every day.”

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment and politics. He may be

reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at paul.clinton@latimes.com.