STILLWATER NEWSPRESS, April, 22, 2007
By Jacob Longan
With a crowd larger than expected and a few snags along the way, the inaugural Remember the Ten run still achieved its primary goal on Saturday.
The race was the brainchild of Kerry Alexander, a 1986 Oklahoma State graduate who wanted to help OSU memorialize the 10 members of the Cowboy basketball family who died on Jan. 27, 2001.
That night, when the group was returning from a game at Colorado, television/radio engineer Kendall Durfey, pilot Bjorn Fahlstrom, student-athlete Nate Fleming, media relations coordinator Will Hancock, student-athlete Daniel Lawson, trainer Brian Luinstra, pilot Denver Mills, director of operations Pat Noyes, broadcaster Bill Teegins and student assistant Jared Weiberg perished when their plane crashed outside of Strasburg, Colo.
They are honored by nearly identical memorials in Gallagher-Iba Arena and on the site of the crash.
Now they are also memorialized by a race that is expected to be an annual event — and if the size of the crowd was any indication, a successful one.
Between 900 and 1,000 runners competed in three races — a 10 kilometers, a 5K and a one-mile fun run. The results show 670 finishers in the competitive races.
The proceeds are bound for OSU’s grief counseling services.
“We made a commitment to remember,” said James Halligan, who was the university’s president at the time of the tragedy. “We are trying to keep this commitment and this is spectacular. Isn’t this (crowd) wonderful? This is unbelievable.”
Also in attendance was Eddie Sutton, who coached the basketball team until last summer and who had the task of calling families to tell them their loved ones would not be coming home.
“I didn’t come up with the idea (for the run), but I applaud the people that did,” said Sutton, who plans to run next year if his surgeon will allow it. “It’s certainly a great tribute to the 10 wonderful men that died in the airplane crash. It’s a real tribute that we had this many people turn out (Saturday).”
Teegin’s father, Bill Tietgens (Teegins was the son’s professional name), was also in attendance.
“I think it’s great to see such a turnout,” Tietgens said. “We had no idea.”
In the fun run was Larry Reece, who does the announcing of Cowboy games over the GIA public address system.
“I think anything we can do to remember the 10 great people we lost in this tragedy, we need to do it and do more of it,” Reece said. “They were great people. We all still hurt because we miss them, but anytime you can get the OSU family together — and this is the extended family because I’m sure we have a lot of runners that aren’t O-State people — they realize what this means. We have a lot of runners here.”
Among the runners competing was Anissa Angelosante, a redshirt freshman on the Cowgirl cross country/track team. She won the women’s 5K race with a time of 18:56.
“Running for this has more meaning than a 5K I do for fun,” Angelosante sad. “This happened to OSU student-athletes. That makes it more special, a more meaningful run.”
Oklahoma City native Morgan Reed won the men’s race in 17:55. The teacher at Oklahoma Christian Academy is a former Oklahoma Christian University runner.
“I was (at OCU) when (the crash) happened,” Reed said. “I saw how it affected our campus. A lot of kids’ dads, grampas and moms were OSU alumni and they were planning on going there. I just wanted to come up here and support the whole deal.”
In the 10K, the women’s winner was another Cowgirl — sophomore Brittany Mason, who finished in 40:45.
On the men’s side, the trophy should have gone to Cowboy sophomore Daniel Watts.
Watts and Stillwater doctor Mike Kelly were well ahead of the pack when they were sent the wrong way by an official.
Despite both finishing roughly seven minutes ahead of the rest of the competitors, they were disqualified. Thus Stillwater native Daric Adair was awarded first place after finishing in 40:29.
Kelly was not upset.
“It’s just a race and it’s a good cause,” Kelly said. “There are many other races.”
Watts called the event “a great way to honor the people that lost their lives.”
“It’s good that we still remember,” the Cambridge, England, native said. “It’s quite poignant to do it this week, with what happened at Virginia Tech.”
If you are interested in volunteer or sponsorship opportunities with this annual event,
please e-mail Kerry Alexander at: kerrydonalexander@hotmail.com
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