Wonder Woman of the Week: Rell Sunn

This week's spotlight is a hero of many hats. Surf experts consider Rell Sunn to have been one of the greatest female surfers of all time. The Oahu native was also the first female lifeguard in Hawaii, and held several job titles throughout her life including a hula instructor and world surfing champion. Sunn is most famous however for her pioneering work in breast cancer research. During a surfing competition in California in 1982, Sunn noticed a lump which turned out to be a cancerous tumor. The pro surfer underwent a mastectomy and bone marrow transplants while helping breast cancer researchers learn more about the disease.Given only a year to live, Sunn spent every day surfing- even while undergoing chemotherapy- and managed to live fourteen years with breast cancer before dying in 1998.

Rell Sunn was an inspiration for women across Hawaii. Often remembered as "Auntie Rell," Rell Sunn proved the capabilities of women surfers as dominant athletes in the ocean. Her groundbreaking appointment as a beach lifeguard helped open paths for more women to become lifeguards in Hawaii, and her fourteen year long battle with breast cancer helped medical experts learn more about the disease and find treatments that helped save the lives of countless patients. More than three thousand people attended Sunn's funeral service to watch her ashes enter the ocean on the beach she grew up on in Hawaii. The athlete entered the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach, CA in 1996 and has been the subject of several surf films.