Race celebrates cancer survivors

Hoosiers Outrun Cancer is more than a race – it’s a celebration of life.

And for the Kelley School of Business, it’s the commemoration of an extraordinary professor.

Kelley alumnus John Walter said the Graduate Entrepreneurship Club gathers a team of MBA students and Kelley alumni each year in memory of Walt Blacconiere, who passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2007.

“He was the most engaging person you could ever imagine,” Walter said.

He said Blacconiere took a very  boring subject like accounting and created an experience.

“He made accounting such an engaging process,” Walter said. “He was just wild in all the right ways.”

The Kelley Runs for Walt team will be among 5,000 other participants in the race, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year.

The event is the largest of its kind in south central Indiana, said Michelle Farmer, special events manager for the Bloomington Hospital Foundation.  
 
The idea for the race came from Karen Knight’s desire to honor her mother and brother who both died of cancer, according to the race brochure.

Knight, along with her friend Dorothy Ellis, proposed the idea to the Bloomington Hospital Foundation. The race attracted about 2,000 participants in its first year. Knight’s husband, former IU basketball coach Bob Knight,  thought of the name.

“We really provide a way for the community to come together ... to memorialize someone they’ve lost,” Farmer said.

Cancer survivors, like the 2008 team Hakuna Matatas, also participate in the event.

“It’s a way to celebrate themselves,” Farmer said. “There is so much happiness and joy.”

The proceeds from the event are the main source of funds for the Olcott Center for Cancer Education, which provides free resources for cancer patients and their families.

According to the event’s Web site, the race has raised more than $1 million since its inception in 2000. Farmer said the goal for this year is $180,000.

Before the race there wasn’t even a center, Janice Ross, the center’s manager, said. Since then, the money raised has continued to provide services such as one-on-one counseling with patients, she said.

“The money is one thing,” Walter said, “but the community vibe is where the real power comes from.”