Wasauksing Kinomaugewgamik kindergarten to Grade 8 students and staff weren’t deterred from the annual Terry Fox walk by a downpour Friday, Oct. 6.
After the brief rain, the sun came out to shine on the special walk that commemorated Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope — which raised funds and awareness for cancer — and also marked the 18th annual local walk organized by the school’s own Diane King.
King organized the first walk on Sept. 29, 2006 in memory of her “hero” whom she saw in Parry Sound in the summer of 1980.
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“He’s the same age as I am. I watched him run through Parry Sound,” she said. “So, I get all these kids and past kids to do that, to walk.”
Forty-three years have passed since the Marathon of Hope, which began on April 12 in Newfoundland and ended on Sept. 1 in Thunder Bay when the cancer spread to Fox’s lungs, but King said she gets “the teachers to inspire them to go online and find his story and talk about it with them for the whole week.”
Students walked from the school to the monument honouring residential school survivors near the swing bridge and back to school. At the monument, literacy lead Donna Genereaux spoke to Fox’s “determination, his grit,” said students who sang the school song with King at the front.
