By Summer Crawford

News Editor

@summercrawfordd

In October 2012 Coppell High School was rocked to its core in one tragic week. The deaths of two students, seniors Jacob Logan and Jonah Blackwell, deeply affected the community, including its families and students. Although the emotional impact of this loss hit hard, fellow friends decided to make something good out of tragedy.

As a part of an Advanced Placement English III humanitarian aid project, CHS juniors started an annual event called Run for Life in honor of Jonah and all of those who have committed suicide. The money raised from the 5K goes to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

This year the third annual Run for Life will be on May 9 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Andy Brown Park East in Coppell. Among the group of English students involved in organizing the run is junior and cross country runner Taylor Stiff.

“This run has been passed on to us from past students, but the person who actually started this was George Fairchild; he started it because Jonah Blackwell committed suicide, we were all pretty close to him on the cross country team and he wanted to do something that would impact the rest of the school and make a memory of Jonah,” Stiff said. “We wanted to make it a tradition and keep it going, keep the memory of Jonah alive. And because suicide is such a big issue that is not really talked about very often, we wanted to keep people aware of this issue.”

Continuing the legacy of the run has also been important to senior Jessie Cranmer, friend of former CHS graduate George Fairchild, who took on this cause her junior year of high school like Stiff. Cranmer is also a cross country student and was impacted by Jonah’s death.

“I ran in the Run for Life the first year and they donated around $5,000,” Cranmer said. “In the cross country community, even if we didn’t know Jonah, we were all affected by it, so we were a team and we were going through it together. George asked me to do it for my humanitarian aid project last year. I was really excited about it, George and I were both [cross country] captains together so that really helped me and influenced me in that aspect.”

Although Cranmer is no longer a junior, she has still participated in hosting the 5K this year with the junior group. She helped them get started in the beginning of the process and sees the importance of the run’s message.

“I think George really focused on raising a lot of money, [but] with the group this year I changed that a bit,” Cranmer said. “I didn’t focus the time we had on raising a lot of money, I think the most important part was raising awareness and getting people to understand that [suicide] does need to be talked about, so I hope people come out, even if they aren’t a runner, and at least just see the Blackwell family come because they come every year.  It is a celebration of running for life and we are all given this life to live. It’s important for people to understand we take what we have for granted too often.”

Whether you are an avid runner or just want to support the Blackwell family, come out and celebrate the gift of life with the community this Saturday. Thunderstorms are anticipated, however, the run will continue as long as it is just raining.