By KAT BERGERON
kbergeron@sunherald.com

ABC "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts waves to the crowd outside ABC studios in New York's Times Square on Tuesday. Roberts told viewers that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be undergoing surgery Friday.

"Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts did not realize how personal her talk would become when she agreed to be the keynote speaker at a cancer fundraiser while on the Mississippi Coast for a Hurricane Katrina anniversary broadcast.

On Tuesday, in her upbeat style but with a trembling voice heard only once before during Katrina coverage, Roberts told ABC viewers that on Friday she will undergo surgery for early stage breast cancer. She is among the 178,480 new female breast cancer diagnoses the American Cancer Society predicts for this year.

"Yes, this has happened to me, and I will talk about it but my passion is still focused on Katrina recovery," Roberts told the Sun Herald on Tuesday morning. "My main cause remains helping the Mississippi Gulf Coast get back on its feet after Katrina."

But that cause, which has brought her many times to the Coast, where she grew up, will share the limelight with a now even stronger determination to convince Americans of the need for early cancer detection. It's an issue she addressed after the death of ABC colleague Joel Siegel in July, and ironically, that night she discovered a lump during a breast self-examination.

The 46-year-old already had agreed to do the now sold-out Aug. 29 Pink Heart Funds luncheon at Beau Rivage in Biloxi because she was "very moved by the work of these women" who raise money for cancer patients who cannot afford wigs and prosthesis. At the time, Roberts thought she was in good health.

"I had no idea. None," Roberts said. "It's one of those moments when you look up to heaven and think, 'You knew something I didn't know.'

The popular ABC anchor grew up in Pass Christian, was a high school basketball star there and reported for South Mississippi's WLOX-TV before launching a stellar national career that began with ESPN.

"Someone said to me as I was leaving the studio that you don't say, 'Why did this happen to me' but, 'Why did this happen for me?'

" Roberts said. "There is something to be learned. There is a greater good for this. I've already heard from women who were on their way to the doctor because they'd earlier found something and they hadn't had it checked.

"I'm amazed that I have cancer. I'm not the right age. I'm athletic. I don't eat Fritos and don't drink soda pop. I thought I would be the last person to have cancer but what this really shows is that there is no such thing as low risk. We're all at risk."

Roberts reflected on inequities of the health care system. "I'm blessed with the medical care I am getting," she said, "but I think about what other people are dealing with. I work for a company that says 'Just whatever you need,' and I'm grateful. But that just is not the way it is for everyone. It shouldn't be a privileged I have; it should be everyone's right."