Wednesday, Oct. 08, 2008

Pumpkin Run/Walk celebrates 10-year anniversary

Dennis and Stacie Lindsey have their own special spot at the Jared Coones Memorial 5K Pumpkin Run/Walk each year.

They park their van at the entrance to Black Bob Road off of Brougham Drive and help direct parking. They will be there this Saturday assisting drivers and cheering participants in this year’s 10th Anniversary of the Pumpkin Run/Walk.

“It’s amazing how fast the years go by,” Dennis Lindsey said.

In every year the Pumpkin Run/Walk has taken place, Dennis, Stacie and their four children have volunteered in some way.

“It’s just become a part of our October,” Stacie Lindsey said. “Every year, rain or shine.”

Over the years, the Lindseys became friends with the Coones family, the founders of the Pumpkin Run/Walk.

The Lindseys lived across the street from the Black Bob Elementary School that Jared Coones attended.

They met Tom and Jayne Coones, Jared’s parents, when Dennis Lindsey served as PTO president from 1995 to 1996.

Both Lindseys attended a bone marrow drive in an attempt to help Jared Coones, who had leukemia.

“They are some of the most wonderful people you would ever want to meet,” Stacie Lindsey said.

The Lindseys were some of the first people to provide publicity posters and volunteer when the Pumpkin Run/Walk was started in 1998, after Jared died.

The event was designed to honor Jared who was a 10-year-old with a love of pumpkins. The run/walk winds through the Black Bob Elementary School neighborhood where Jared lived.

The first run/walk was small, but powerful with about 500 people in attendance, the Lindseys said. But year after year, they saw more people particpate.

“It just brings everyone together for a great cause,” Stacie Lindsey said.

In July 2005, Dennis Lindsey suffered an aortic dissection while driving. It was an injury that left him in a coma for several weeks and paralyzed.

The pumpkin run/walk that fall was his first “big outing” following his illness and subsequent rehabilitation. At the time, Jared’s mother Jayne was living with inflammatory breast cancer.

“I didn’t want to miss it for anything,” Dennis Lindsey said. “I knew she was in bad health and I wanted to make sure to be there. Now I am more focussed on getting there every year. “

Though it is more difficult to attend the Pumpkin Run/Walk, the Coones family continues to be an inspiration for the Lindseys to attend every year, Stacie Lindsey said.

“It is more difficult now; we have to get up earlier than we used to,” Stacie Lindsey said. “But we will be there no matter what.”

Jayne Coones died in 2006, and the Pumpkin Run/Walk has evolved into an event that honors both Jayne and Jared.

The money raised from the Run/Walk continues to raise funds for research and organizations that support cancer patients and families in need.

The Lindseys said some money from the run/walk helped them purchase the wheelchair accessible van they drive to the event every year.

This year, more than 2,000 people will participate in the Pumpkin Run/Walk. Hundreds of volunteers return each year to help run the event, said Kris Pall, coordinator of the event.

More than 90 people monitor the course every year. Several Olathe police officers volunteer their time each year to make sure attendees stay safe.

“That continuous help is critical so each year we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Pall said. “...It’s pretty impressive the way the community continues to embrace it.”

Tom Coones said as the event grows he continues to draw strength from the many families who attend and help out every year, like the Lindseys.

“When I seem them, I feel the love and energy that comes from them,” Tom Coones said. “The event is a bittersweet, emotional one. It has helped with the grief process. Jared and Jayne provide the inspiration for why we need to keep up the fight, and it reminds us of why we do the event in the first place.”

Sunday was the 10th anniversary of the day Jared died. To honor Jared, Tom Coones said he ran the 5K course.

As he ran, he passed a family preparing for the Pumpkin Run/walk. One of their children shouted “Hey, that’s Jared’s Dad!” he said.

“Even 10 years after he’s been gone, it’s an incredible feeling that people still know him,” Coones said. “It warms my heart.”

The Pumpkin Run/Walk starts at 8 a.m. Saturday at Black Bob Elementary School. For more information visit www.pumpkinrunwalk.org.

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