Every so often the archives turn up a story that was pure accident. On a Monday night in March of 2010, I was driving home down South 8th Street and passed two young men running north — not jogging for exercise, running across a continent.
Cole Choken had come all the way from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He had already run to raise money for diabetes research, and on January 1, 2010 he set out from the Mexican border headed north up the East Coast and back home to Winnipeg — roughly a six-month run, this time for cancer. His traveling companion was Justin Tetrault. I pulled over, got a picture, and we ran the story here the next morning.
Fifteen-plus years later it still holds up, and for a simple reason: Opelika sits on the kind of road that carries people with a purpose straight through the middle of town, and most days nobody notices. That night I did.
The original story ran on the Opelika Daily News on March 22, 2010. You can read it exactly as it appeared, photo and all: Cole Choken Running Thru Opelika.
