IU Dance Marathon members to honor lives of student, AIDS victim throughtout the week

The deaths of Ryan White and Ashley Crouse were 15 years and four days apart, but the memories of both of their lives are what inspires IU Dance Marathon members like senior Sarah Franz.

“It is the driving factor behind our organization,” Franz said.

In their honor, IU Dance Marathon has declared this week “Ryan and Ashley Week” to remember their effects on the IU campus.

White was planning to attend IU when he died April 8, 1990, of AIDS. He contracted HIV from a blood transfusion at age 13 and developed AIDS. He then became a nationally prominent face of the disease. A friend started Dance Marathon at IU in his honor in the early ’90s.

“He believed people shouldn’t be treated differently because of what life hands them,” Franz said.

Crouse had “a passion for Dance Marathon,” said senior Adam Ayers, and her initials “ALC” can be found on every piece of Dance Marathon-related clothing in honor of her.

Crouse was leaving the Kappa Kappa Gamma house with her boyfriend and another Dance Marathon member when she was killed in a car accident April 12, 2005.

Though formal programs are not planned for the week, members of IUDM will distribute information in a YouTube video about Crouse.
They will also sell T-shirts commemorating both White and Crouse and pass out small flyers with information about the contributions the two made in their lives.

The flyers will also have blue ribbons that students can pin to their shirts in honor of Crouse, junior Austin Bristow said.

The informal nature of the memorial week is a reflection of the type of leaders Crouse and White were, Franz said.

“It’s not what they stood for,” Franz said. “They were quiet leaders and humble people.”

Dance Marathon members will not do any fundraising, either, said Bristow, as the week will be focused on raising awareness about who White and Crouse were.

“We want people to see what they stood for as humans,” Bristow said. “They’re what people should strive to be if they ever get the chance to.”