After thanking the crowd and telling them to have a good time, he said only this: “Let’s help take care of each other.”
This is the message both organizers and Marilyn Behrman, Eric’s wife, said underlies the Jill Behrman Color the Campus 5K Walk/Run. The run commemorates Jill Behrman, Eric and Marilyn’s daughter, an IU student who went missing in 2000 after she went out for a bike ride alone. Her remains were found in 2003.
Although the Saturday event was partially intended to help people get active and have fun, the Behrmans and event organizers from IU Recreational Sports also wanted to encourage people to look out for one another and try to avoid allowing dangerous situations to occur.
“Jill was just a normal, everyday kid who grew up in Bloomington, had a pretty good life,” Marilyn said. “One day she went for a bike ride, and she never came home. And it could happen to anyone, but what we have to learn to do is to prevent the situations that might lead to something like that, or at least do the best we can.”
At its start in 2000, Marilyn said the run was a way for people to feel like they could help her family when it seemed like there was nothing anyone could do. Through time, its purpose has evolved to focus more on promoting personal safety and recognizing when others are in potentially dangerous situations.
Jacqueline Terrell, chair of the student steering committee for the JB5K, said the run became a “color run,” wherein people are covered in colored powder along the race, in 2012 in an effort to pump up attendance and get more students involved in the event. This year’s run brought more than 2,000 participants as well as about 200 volunteers in various roles.
“We usually have 40 percent of race participants that have never done a 5K before, so it’s a really good stepping stone for people to start working out if they never have before as well as get involved with Recreational Sports,” Terrell said.
Members of the Retail Studies Organization attended the event as a group. Tia Carter, a member of RSO, said it was her first year attending the run, but the event is encouraged for their members.
“We usually try to get a big group of us together to promote a community in our organization as well as IU,” said Claire Russell, director of fashion show for RSO.
The event raises money for the Jill Behrman Emerging Leader Scholarship, which is given out each year to IU students who are leaders on campus and involved with Recreational Sports in some way. Proceeds also go toward programming with Culture of Care and to benefit programming within Recreational Sports.
Chris Geary, service director for evaluation, special projects and special events for Recreational Sports, said part of the reason the event continues with strong interest in its 16th year is Eric and Marilyn’s involvement. The couple comes to many of the event-steering committee meetings and attends other events to tell Jill’s story.
“That connection with the family has, I think, been one of those things that has really kept the students engaged because they see and talk to and get to know Jill through her parents,” Geary said. “Her parents are just great people. They’re fun to be around, and they’re inspirational themselves.”
Marilyn said she enjoys attending steering committee meetings because she can get to know the students on the committee, and watch them grow up if they stay on the committee for multiple years.
The fact that students still participate in the run despite how long it has been since Jill’s disappearance is impressive, Marilyn said; some freshmen were only three years old when Jill went missing.
“To me that’s just an amazing thing to see all that support all these years later from kids who never knew Jill and probably didn’t know us until maybe race day,” Marilyn said. “People get to know who we are and what it’s about, but just the fact that they come out on a Saturday morning and have a great time together, that’s awesome.”
