On Saturday June 7th, an event that is meant to support the BC Special Olympics and is being put on by the Terrace RCMP will see a recognizable item from the past make an appearance during it’s runtime.
The Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics BC is happening around the whole Province of BC and in Terrace, it will go for around 5 km, mainly on the Millennium Trail, starting at the Terrace RCMP detachment building, stopping at Frank Street and then turning around to go back to the station.
And for the actual Torch part of the event, the event organizer, Constable Kelly Cates, was able to get in contact with Terrace’s longtime former Deputy Fire Chief, Dave Jephson, who still had possession of a Torch used during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics that he got keep.
“So during the Olympics runup, the idea was that they were gonna have a torch, a lit torch obviously, go across the country, which is going to be used for obviously to light it specially in Vancouver, Terrace was picked at that point in time as one of the destination place to have a special Olympic cauldron and that would set off a chain of events for our community, it was incredible, it was really great for Terrace to have that focus and have people come to town and take part in it, I think it was a special day for the community, it was definitely a special day for me, I was picked through committee members and whoever within the system in Terrace to be a torch bearer during the event and more special for me, I was actually designated as the last person and I lit the torch to start the events in regards to the 2010 Olympics for Terrace.”
Constable Cates also later disclosed that it had been quite a while since this event had been done in Terrace while also telling how the idea to put it on came about as well.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time it’s been done in Terrace at least in the last 12 years for sure it hasn’t been done, and so I usually try to have something on the go in the spring for a community activity, in the past we’ve done bike rodeos, things like that and the torch run was something that had come in the past as a possibility and this year it just seemed like the perfect time to initiate it.”
Both Cates and Jephson have grown increasingly excited for the event and are encouraging everyone to come support it by registering online to not only take part in the run itself but also to hear several speeches at the opening ceremony and for the barbeque after the run ends that’s being sponsored by several local community businesses.