‘Team Christy’ captain loses battle with cancer

Clayton resident Christy Harris died last week after a long battle with cancer. She was just three weeks short of her 50th birthday.

She was diagnosed in December 2012 when an annoying pain in her hip turned out to be a fast-growing tumor.

Not one to go down without a fight, the spirited mother of three mounted a two year battle that included leadership posts in Clayton’s Relay for Life, the two day event sponsored by the American Cancer Association.

In 2012, Harris served as the event’s team recruitment leader, never suspecting that, one year later, she would be leading her own team of more than 100 around the field. “Team Christy” all wore bright blue t-shirts and a life-size likeness of Harris towered over the walkers. Across her blue-clad chest, she wore a banner that read “Fighting Like Hell.”

In 2007, Harris and husband Joel, realized a long-held dream and opened Clayton Books in the Clayton Station. For the next three years, her quick wit and “book banter” made the store a community center. In 2010, the store closed, unable to compete against publishers who were selling online at less than wholesale.

Sadness spread through the community at the news of her death. “She loved her family, her church, her neighbors, friends and Clayton Books,” said Sunny Solomon, long-time employee and the store’s Book Lady. “The loss of a bookstore is one thing, but the loss of Christy Harris leaves a huge gap in the community of Clayton.”

“Christy loved the finer things,” says her friend Beth Kenneally. “But lived for the simple basic beauties in life; grace and love and gratefulness…She was a shining light.”

See page 6 for obituary and funeral arrangements.