As mothers around the country are honored today with flowers and cards and perhaps brunch, Casper's Della Works has a poster full of memories and some heavy hardware on which to reflect.

Works, 72; her daughter, Barbara "Barbie" Bosco, 46; and granddaughter, Nicole Bosco, 23, ran in and finished the Walt Disney World Marathon in Florida in January.

And just for grins, Works and Barbie Bosco ran a half-marathon the day prior, in order to get a special, gold "Goofy" medal given only to finishers of both events.

"Running with my mother is always an adventure, before and after the race mostly," Barbie Bosco laughed. "And the journey - just getting there is always interesting."

She is a 1980 graduate of Natrona County High School and lives in Vernon Hills, Ill., with her three children and dog. The Disney was her 12th marathon.

This is the fourth marathon she has run with her mother. They also ran the Los Angeles, Pikes Peak and Green Bay marathons together - the latter in honor of their late father and husband, Larry Works, who was raised in the Green Bay, Wis., area.

"Mom started first," Bosco said. "I thought if she can do it (run 26 miles at once), I can do it."

Although her mother is a marathon celebrity of sorts (she's competed in 19 marathons on three continents over 15 years), Bosco said the mother-daughter aspect of the event is never lost on her.

"Being at the finish line together is very moving," she said. "I get choked up every time she finishes."

Works maintains she was luckier than usual in Florida, finishing just ahead of a cutoff time for "stragglers" in 7 hours-plus.

"I stopped for so many pictures and was messing around so much that it's lucky I finished," Works said.

Bosco's daughter, Nicole, ran her second marathon in Florida, having also run the Chicago Marathon.

She graduated from Augustana College, where she was named an all-conference soccer player, with a degree in speech and communication and works for careerbuilder.com in Chicago.

She holds a special place in the Works family tree as the oldest of Della's 14 grandchildren, all of whom were taught by their grandmother to downhill and cross country ski on Casper Mountain.

"My boys here (teen grandsons in Casper) want to run with me but they have to wait until they're 18, and I don't know if I can wait that long," Della said.

When Della runs, she collects lifelong friends along the way. In a sea of 16,000 runners, a friend she made on the Antarctica trip found her along the course in Florida. A group of those who ran the Antarctica Marathon together in 2005 inspired her to run in Florida.

"I said I think I will, because I'm getting old and I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to run."

Although Works has run in Greece and in Antarctica, there were things very special about Florida.

"When Barbie told me she wanted to run with me, I said 'that's great,' and then I screamed and I cried," she said. "This is the gift Robert left us. It's affecting all generations."

Robert Perry Works, Della and Larry's oldest son; Barbie's brother and Nicole's uncle, died in 1991 in a plane crash in Alaska.

"You don't know what tomorrow will bring," she said. "I think we had magic dust on us."

Reach Community News editor Sally Ann Shurmur, who has never run a marathon, at (307) 266-0520; sallyann.shurmur@trib.com or see her profile and blog at my.trib.com/Sal/blog