This ride is personal
Published 10:36 pm Friday, June 17, 2011
James Brown, a teacher and tennis coach from South Carolina, and his wife, Sonja, are pictured near the Edmund Pettus Bridge in downtown Selma. James is riding his bicycle through the Southeast in an effort to raise money and awareness to battle lymphoma, the disease that took the life of one of his students and tennis players. -- Chris Wasson
For the first time, Friday, James Brown walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge with his wife Sonja.
But Brown, a resident of Pawleys Island, S.C., has crossed more than one-fourth of the country on his bicycle, not his feet, all in the memory of a former student and player who died three years ago Saturday.
Brown, who has coached tennis at Waccamaw High School in Pawleys Island to nine state titles, is riding in the memory of Ashley Gaines, a player on three of Brown’s teams from 2004-2006, who died June 18, 2008 after a 17-month battle with Large-B Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
“I’m an avid cyclist; I cycle all the time,” Brown said. “I’ve always wanted to do a cross-country ride from San Diego back to South Carolina, but it’s difficult because I’m off as a teacher, but my wife is not. So we were trying to figure out what we could do so she could still work.”
The original plan for the ride was to travel the length of Highway 80 from Dallas, Texas, but road conditions prevented that route from being taken to completion.
Instead, Brown traveled U.S. Highway 84 until Waynesboro, Miss., and then transferred to U.S. Highway 80 at Cuba.
“We started raising money for the ride before we left (S.C.) at the school, and we started to get the word out,” Brown said. “Facebook has been huge, and then we have a website that my wife created (theashleygride.com) that had 256 hits yesterday.”
The journey has raised well over $14,000 for the Ashley G Charitable Foundation in the first half of the journey.
“We first said, ‘Let’s try to raise $10,000’ and thought we had no chance to get to it,” Brown said.
The journey has been a dream come true while raising the funds, Brown said.
“We have had a great time,” Brown said. “I mean, I’ve rode across the Mississippi River and, as you know, 84 is a lot of two-lane that goes through a lot of small towns that are just great. I would stop at this old store and get a drink and we would have people stop at the store and invite me to their church or just write a check.
“It’s been incredible.”
If you would like to find out more or donate to the Ashley G. Foundation, you can go to ashleygfoundation.com or theashleygride.com and follow the link.
