DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

 

After bicycling for about 50 days from San Francisco — while fundraising more than $60,000 for Alzheimer’s — 12 Western Kentucky University students and graduates arrived in Bowling Green this week.

The Bike4Alz team of 12, from the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, had spent about 50 days on the road — their nights at churches, camps, the residences of relatives and friends of families, and elsewhere — and some 20 days remain. Awaiting them Monday, at Western’s Creason Lot, were family and friends.

“You go the first month and a half, the whole of those 50 days, you’re in Utah, Nevada, California, and you don’t really know anybody, you don’t see familiar faces,” said team member John King, whose parents embraced him in a tearful hug on his arrival. “Then, you get back to around Kentucky, and you start seeing familiar faces and friends again …

“All the guys are super pumped to be back, super excited and just just happy to see people we love and care about, and been around for so long.”

King, a sports psychology undergraduate who’ll return in fall for clinical psychology, described signing up as a way to grow and work on something bigger than himself.

“This summer, I get to use myself as a vessel to help others in a different way,” the Bardstown native said.

His mother, Christy Bradford, spoke through tears about her son.

“I’m so proud of him, and it’s hard to be worried every day — but let him be the adult he is and go on this journey,” she said. “These young men are all heroes.”

King’s father, Chris King, also expressed how proud he was.

“Some people can live their whole lives and they wonder if they make a difference — and each one of these guys will always know that they made a big difference by doing this,” Chris King said.

Mason Strunk, another team member whose family had awaited him, described seeing his family again as incredible.

“It’s so sweet to come home and see your family … all the people that you know, and (…) familiar faces,” said Strunk, who will enter his junior year as a marketing major in the fall.

It’s been a physically demanding journey, as the team rode through mountains in states like Colorado and visited numerous others in places like churches and nursing homes to hear people’s stories about Alzheimer’s. Teammates, too, would share with each other how their relatives have been affected by the illness.

“Every single time you get to that hard point, you always remember why (you’re) doing this, and you think back to the people that you’ve met and the experiences that you’ve had throughout the trip, and it really just keeps you going,” he said. “Keep peddling.”

For Strunk, it’s also personal — at least seven of his relatives have had it, and it’s had a prevalence on his mother’s side of the family. The team dedicated a day on the road to honoring them, he said.

His grandmother Shirley Hopkins showed up from Louisiana, alongside other family, to see Strunk’s stop in Bowling Green. She’s had two brothers, two sisters, some aunts and an uncle eventually experience living with Alzheimer’s.

“It robs you of your family, before they’re actually gone,” she said. “ it’s just means so much that these young boys are doing this to help (with) this awful disease.

“They’re just exceptional young men, and I pray God keeps them safe the rest of their journey and gives them a good life free from Alzheimer’s, and they come up with a cure for this thing real soon.”

The team’s on track to finish the ride in Virginia Beach, where they’ll put their front tires in the water, on July 27, Strunk said.