Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez led a group of runners across the Hood Canal Bridge on Wednesday, ending the North Olympic Peninsula’s daylong run for the Special Olympics.
At least 60 Peninsula law enforcement officers participated in the torch run from just west of Port Angeles to the Kitsap County side of the Hood Canal Bridge in the relay that handed off to runners in Kitsap County, said Ron Cameron, Clallam County sheriff’s chief criminal deputy, who organized the Peninsula portion of the statewide effort.
The run will continue today through Kitsap County and end Friday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma as the Special Olympic Summer Games open.
Participants in Jefferson and Clallam counties raised more than $2,000 for Special Olympics of Washington, which offers sports competition to athletes with intellectual disabilities, Cameron said.
T-shirt sales
Funds were raised through T-shirt sales, Cameron said.
“We reached out to the people who wanted to run to spread by word of mouth sales of T-shirts,” Cameron said.
T-shirt orders closed May 6.
“In September, we hope to have another Tip-A-Cop event like we did at Applebee’s last year,” Cameron said.
The 2010 fundraiser at the Sequim Applebee’s raised $2,504 for Special Olympics, the second-highest amount at an Applebee’s for Special Olympics in the state that year.
In addition to the Jefferson and Clallam counties’ sheriff’s offices, agencies participating in the torch run — or torch walk, in some cases — were the Port Townsend, Sequim and Port Angeles police departments; the Lower Elwha Kallam tribal police; the State Patrol; the National Park Service; the Clallam Bay Corrections Center; the Coast Guard; and the two offices of Customs and Border Protection: the Border Patrol and Air and Marine.
Runners began early at Laird’s Corner on U.S. Highway 101 west of Port Angeles, taking the torch along Laird Road to Edgewood Drive, then down the Tumwater Truck Route and into downtown Port Angeles.
At the Red Lion Hotel at Lincoln and Front streets, Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict led a walking leg of the route along the Olympic Discovery Trail to the former Rayonier mill site.
From there, runners kept to the Discovery Trail, traveling to Robin Hill Park, through Carlsborg and on into Sequim, where a second walking leg began at Rhodefer Road before the run continued into Jefferson County and ended at the far end of the Hood Canal Bridge.
The law enforcement torch run began in Washington state in 1982, with law enforcement officers taking the “Flame of Hope” to the games’ opening ceremonies.
