Ever since Dan Neal saw the movie The Cannonball Run more than 20 years ago, he has wanted to race across the United States.

He will get started April 30. He and his friend, John Cascella, both of Terrace Park, will enter the 2004 One Lap of America, formerly known as the Cannonball Run, to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Neal and Cascella of Team Silver Streak Racing will join about 100 others in South Bend, Ind., for the start of the event, which requires teams to drive to California and back. Along the way, there will be stops at various checkpoints and races at some of the top tracks in the United States.

John Cascella (left) and Dan Neal (right), both of Terrace Park, will participate in One Lap of America to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and children like five-year-old Hadley George (center) also of Terrace Park. The Cincinnati Enquirer/MEGGAN BOOKER

"My mother suffers from diabetes and this keeps us watching our health," Cascella said.

Team Silver Streak Racing hopes to raise $50,000 through sponsorships and donations.

Between April 30 and May 8 racers will compete at the Tire Rack in South Bend, the Heartland Raceway in Topeka, Kan.; Pikes Peak International in Fountain, Colo.; Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.; Las Vegas Motor Speedway; Pueblo Motor Sports Park, Pueblo, Colo.; Hallett Motor Racing, Tulsa. Okla.; Cabela's Track, Kansas City, Kan.; Road America, Elkhart, Wis., and back to South Bend.

If you enter, you can win

Whew! Sally Sherman made the deadline for the Summerfair 2004 poster competition by just three hours.

She won and received a $2,000 cash prize. Her design will serve as the marketing centerpiece of Summerfair 2004.

Sherman, who lives in Oakley, has an education degree from the University of Cincinnati and is a graduate of the Cincinnati Academy of Design. She said she had always wanted to enter the competition but always missed the deadline.

"I would kick myself each year for missing the deadline,'' Sherman said. "This year, I put it in my computer calendar and it stared at me every day.''

Her design is based on a photograph she took of a doorway in the Provence region of France. It is a metaphor for "opening the door to creativity,'' she said. "I knew I had a good poster, but I didn't think it would win because it was so different.. As it turns out, that's what they liked."

Kevin Reynolds, Summerfair administrator, said her work represented the sophistication of the Summerfair poster design. Sherman is a graphic designer at Jack Rouse Associates, downtown.

Benefit race Saturday

Five more friends of Rickey Biggs, a Texas biker who has Lou Gehrig's disease, will be at the Race Against Lou Gehrig's Disease Benefit, 2-11 p.m. Saturday at Nathanael Greene Lodge, 6394 Wesselman Road, Green Township.

Members of the Raven Moon Band; Dennis Collins, Bob Ayers, Ann Hungler, Amy Price and Dan Crabstree, who are close friends of Biggs, will perform, donating freely their time and band equipment for the benefit.

Peace crane ceremony

Hanging of peace cranes, made by children at the New Thought Unity Center, will take place at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Washington Park, across the street from Music Hall in Over-the-Rhine.

The event is sponsored by the Peace Down the Way Coalition.

Eileen Cooper Reed, coordinator of the program, said the hanging of cranes comes at an appropriate time in light of Sunday's shooting in Over-the-Rhine of a 7-year-old girl.

"We are already in the process of setting up organizations to work on peace,'' Reed said. "This comes at an opportune time to focus on what adults should be doing to protect our children. If we cannot protect our children, what good are we?''

Peace cranes have spread worldwide since a Japanese girl contracted cancer after the Hiroshima bombing Aug. 6, 1945. Her goal was to make 1,000 peace cranes, but she died before she finished the project. Her classmates completed it.

Since then, children worldwide have made peace cranes and sent them to Hiroshima.

"I will take 1,000 paper cranes that were made by our children to Hiroshima next week,'' Reed said. The program Saturday will involve kids hanging the paper cranes in the gazebo in the park. Music, symbolizing peace, will be played at the program.