By Neil Doyle
PEORIA – Running 465 miles in the heat of summer to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital started with less than two dozen runners, now its grown to a journey of thousands.
The St. Jude Memphis to Peoria Run started in 1982 and was co-founded by Washington Police Chief Mike McCoy. The idea was to drive to the hospital’s Memphis campus then run back home in four days to Peoria, the site of a St. Jude affiliate clinic.
McCoy explained to WJBC’s Scott Laughlin the reaction when they first presented the idea.
“People thought we were crazy and we put an ad in the paper and got 19 people to respond and everyone went,” said McCoy. “But it was terrible, we didn’t know anything about running 465 miles or staying awake for four days.”
37 years later the relay-style run has expanded, dozens of shorter satellite runs with more than 3,000 regional runners, surround the 200-person main run.
“Each year the reaction and generosity is fantastic,” McCoy added. “We have people come out in the middle of the night to meet us. In Assumption they meet us at 1 a.m., a town of 600 and we had 400 people greet us with a garage full of food and they gave us $28,000 from the community.”
The St. Jude Memphis to Peoria Run has raised $56.2 million in its history.
“I always like to say you want to invest your time, effort and energy in something that pays off…the work they do at St. Jude in saving kids lives is paying off,” McCoy said.
The run raised $5.4 million in 2018.
Neil Doyle can be reached at [email protected]
