Photo by Joe Imel/Daily News Andee Rudloff (left) and Chuck Beard take a break Sunday from painting the side of the Phoenix Theater. Rudloff and Beard are part of Campus for a Cure, a nonprofit organization established to help find a cure for cancer. A concert set for 7 p.m. Saturday at Van Meter Auditorium is the group’s first big fundraiser and will feature Butterfly Boucher, whose music has been on the soundtrack of “Shrek 2” and on “Grey’s Anatomy;” Fred Wilhelm, a songwriter for Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill and others; The October, whose new CD is called “Lost Since Graduation;” and Brooke Waggoner, who has a new EP titled “Fresh Pair of Eyes.”

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Chuck Beard was devastated when he lost his best friend and grandpa Monie Beard, who for years was the well-known radio voice of the Bowling Green High School football team, to cancer.

“I know that I would give just about anything to have just one more second, one more hug, one more good talk, just one more moment with my best friend alive and well today,” he said on the Web site for Adventures Inside a Campus for a Cure, the nonprofit organization he and local friends formed this year to raise money for nonprofit cancer research foundations through arts events on college campuses.

That’s just one reason he helped form Campus for a Cure earlier this year.

Now Beard, a 27-year-old former AmeriCorps volunteer who works for Gaddie Shamrock, is preparing - with the rest of the board of Campus for a Cure - for the organization’s first big fundraiser, a concert Saturday featuring some nationally known musicians and local artists at Van Meter Auditorium at Western Kentucky University.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. concert, for which the doors open at 6 p.m., cost $30 for students and $45 for adults and may be bought online at www.campusforacure.org.

The concert coincidentally will be eight years from the date of Monie Beard’s death.

It will feature Butterfly Boucher, whose music has been on the soundtrack of “Shrek 2” and on “Grey’s Anatomy;” Fred Wilhelm, a songwriter for Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill and others; The October, whose new CD is called “Lost Since Graduation;” and Brooke Waggoner, who has a new EP titled “Fresh Pair of Eyes.”

In the lobby of Van Meter, there will be several visual artists, including Andee Rudloff, who is a founder of Campus for a Cure, Stacey Irvin, Tiffany Denton and Donnie Firkins.

Authors at the event include Ethan Baker, Lindsay Kee, who is Wilhelm’s wife, and Beard, whose book “Adventures Inside a Bright-Eyed Sky” planted the seed for Campus for a Cure in Rudloff’s mind.

“Andee’s mom had just gotten diagnosed with another form of brain cancer,” Beard said of Rita Rudloff. “Through the normal route of (preparing to publish the) book, we decided we’d like to share the story and try to help other people.”

Using connections Rudloff and Beard have in the music industry, they were able to secure the acts for Saturday’s concert, which will also feature a silent auction of items from Mackenzie’s and BLOOM, tickets to WKU men’s basketball and Tennessee Titans football games and more.

Campus for a Cure board member Matthew Baker, who a few years ago lost a close friend to cancer, now hopes many will come to this weekend’s concert and support Campus for a Cure.

“We truly need the community’s support,” he said. “We all know people who have been affected by this (battle with cancer), and the contribution of everybody will go a long way.”

In addition to Beard, Rudloff and Baker - who is an attorney, former Marine Corps judge advocate and former judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals - the board of Campus for a Cure includes John Phillips Jr., who lost his father to cancer six years ago and now works for NGAS Resources Inc., and Kelley Coleman, a BKD accountant who has had many family members who have battled cancer.

Campus for a Cure has chosen to support The Caring for Carcinoid Foundation, The Lance Armstrong Foundation, The American Lung Association of Maryland, The Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Beard said Campus for a Cure board members believe raising money for the organizations on college campuses will bring the need for raising money for cancer research “to the forefront” of people’s minds.

“There’s a sentimental value to campuses,” he said. You went to school there and it’s a social hub. You look at it as a welcoming place for the arts.”

Eventually, Campus for a Cure would like to have its own cancer research team.