MONROE — When Darlington cross country runners sign the name of a cancer survivor or loved one onto a baton and dip their feet into Lake Michigan in Kenosha Thursday morning, the Run Across Wisconsin will be on.
About 40 boys and girls Darlington High School cross country runners will participate in the 16th annual Run Across Wisconsin starting Friday and ending Saturday as a fundraiser for the Lafayette County Relay For Life. No other schools or teams participate.
The runners will spend tonight in a Kenosha hotel. On Thursday, they will take turns running 800 meters one at a time while the rest ride alongside in a van, all the way from the shore of Lake Michigan in Kenosha to Tom McGuire’s farm near the corner of Wisconsin 69 and State Line Road in Monroe, where a pizza party will await them. The journey will conclude Saturday with a run from Monroe to the Mississippi River in East Dubuque, Iowa.
Darlington cross country coach Arnie Miehe said each Darlington participant will run about 6 to 7 miles, for a total of more than 150 miles. Over the 16 years Darlington has held the event, it has raised over $25,000 for the Lafayette County Relay For Life, he said.
“We want to raise awareness for the Relay For Life,” Miehe said. “I think the main thing is we want to help people out and we want (students) to realize they are not the only person on the face of the Earth.”
Miehe enjoys sharing special moments over the past two decades of the event. He recalls getting a $400 donation during a motorcycle rally in New Diggings as Darlington participants ran through town. Last year, a Lena resident who found out about Run Across Wisconsin on the radio donated to the Lafayette County Relay For Life because his grandson had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
“Everyone is touched by cancer,” said Miehe, whose mother died from the disease.
The Darlington cross country team is donating the proceeds in honor of Carson Hartwig, a Darlington seventh-grader with cancer; Lori Douglas, the mother of Harley Douglas, a former Darlington runner who was on the state runner-up team in 2012; and Barb King, the grandmother of Darlington graduate Paul King, who died about two months ago.
“Our runners have a sense of accomplishment and an appreciation for their health,” Miehe said. “They don’t know how fortunate they are to have their health. This (Run Across Wisconsin) just encompasses it.”
Last year, McGuire provided cheese, crackers, water and soda for participants when they had reached his farm in Monroe.
“This year we wanted to do a little bit more to help them out since they are running past our farm,” McGuire said.
McGuire, a 1993 Monroe High School graduate, farms with his two brothers, Dave and Ed McGuire. Tom McGuire wants to continue supporting Run Across Wisconsin and the benefits it brings to the Relay For Life.
“This is just the first step,” McGuire said of the pizza party planned for this year. “Hopefully, we can do some more for them to get some more donations and recognition.”
He said Greg and Tammie DeRemer started supporting the team two years ago because the runners always stopped at the corner of Wis. 69 and Town Center Road, near where the DeRemers used to live.
Miehe is thankful community members in Monroe are supporting their cause.
“(Tom McGuire and his fiancee Katie Rassmussen) are going to make it a neat day for the kids after a long day of running,” Miehe said. “We are hoping to get people motivated for the Green County Relay For Life.”
