Nearly 7,000 participate in Run in Remembrance
Paige Eckerd and Kristy McCain look skyward at balloons that were released this morning at the beginning of the Run in Remembrance on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg.
They came this morning in headbands and hijabs, in shorts and knee braces, in orange and maroon.
They were 6,800 running for 32.
One of the largest crowds since the 3.2-mile Run in Remembrance was started in 2009 turned out for the fifth anniversary of the April 16, 2007, shootings.
See more on this story at roanoke.com.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
The race organizers could have been arrested for being responsible for more than 50 helium balloons being released into the atmosphere in an hour (Virginia Code). Those balloons rise up and return as litter or worse find their way to the rivers and oceans where they pose a hazard to wildlife. Search the internet for photos of dead turtles, fish, and birds due to balloon litter. My commentary on this issue of two years ago is still available online:
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/244405
Last year, the organizers said they would not be releasing balloons. It’s unfortunate that they returned to this environmentally destructive practice.
Comment by Joan — April 22, 2012 @ 12:10 pm