The 15th annual Colton’s Main Street Run last Saturday was a success and organizers said there were 1,354 runners.
The run has been held since 2010 in memory of Colton Sherrill, son of Trace and Dena Sherrill. The 10-year old athlete and Durant Main Street volunteer passed away 15 years ago from an unknown heart defect while playing basketball.
The Sherrills started Colton’s Run to honor his memory and to help make the community safer by donating automated external defibrillators and other things to benefit the community.
During the opening ceremony at Market Square, Trace Sherrill said they could not have the event without all of their sponsors and runners. He thanked the Rural Enterprises of Oklahoma em- ployee giving program where contributions by employees are matched by REI.
“We appreciate their participation in this program to support the Colton Sherrill Memorial Foundation,” Sherrill said. “They raised $10,000 by the REI employees this year.”
Sherrill also thanked presenting sponsor Cardinal Glass.
“All of our sponsors are important to us,” Sherrill said. “We could not do this without you. We want to thank all of our volunteers. There’s a ton of work that goes into getting this race ready. It starts about six months before today and we want to acknowledge our committee members and our volunteers who make this event run smoothly.”
The colors were presented by Durant Boy Scout Troop 615 and Ashleigh Rich sang the National Anthem.
Sherrill then read Luke chapter 6, verses 17-22, where Jesus went down with the disciples.
“Those troubled by impure spirits were cured and the people all tried to touch him because power was coming from them and healing them all,” Sherrill said. “Looking at his disciples, he said, ‘Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy because great is your reward in Heaven.’” Sherrill said there are many distractions in the world that distract people from what is really important.
“There are lots of things to pull us away here and there,” he said. “I just ask that we all be focused and that we all remember the price that was paid for our salvation and pray that we each would accept that in our heart.“ Tim Boatmun then gave a prayer.
“Dear Heavenly Father, as we walk and run today, please let us be thankful because we are thankful for Colton,” Boatmun said. “Though his time was short, he has left a lasting impact on us all. We are thankful for Colton. We are thankful for Trace and Dena for their commitment to making our community a safer place for all of us. We thank you, oh Lord, for the volunteers who are here who have worked and spent endless hours and we thank those volunteers who came before us and who are now gone. We are thankful for the city and the council for their support, for the county, for those who are helping today keep us all safe.”
Following the ceremony, Sherrill said he was pleased with the number of runners who signed up and he spoke of the main goal of Colton’s Main Street Run.
“Our main push has always been to get automated external defibrillators, AEDs, in schools and other non-profit places like churches and things,” Sherrill said. “The idea is, you need to have those readily available. So, you need more than one on your school campus so you can get to it quickly and you need to have people that are trained in AEDs and CPR who aren’t hesitant to grab one off the wall and use it if necessary.”
According to Sherrill, special training is not required to use an AED because if you know how to put the pads on the person and push the start button, it will walk you through the process.
“CPR and that type of thing is always good to have,” Sherrill added. “In addition to that, recently, we’ve been doing Stop the Bleed kits through a grant from Texoma Health Foundation. We got Stop the Bleed kits in Marshall County schools in Madill and Kingston, and we had already done them in Durant and Calera and to the other county schools just this month.”
Asked if he could have foreseen in 2010 when the first run was held that it would become such a popular community event, Sherrill said, “Not really. We’ve been so blessed by it. We didn’t know what to expect. In our first race, we had about 350 people, I think, and we thought that was fantastic. Now, today, we’re going to have over 1,300, so it’s just really amazing and we couldn’t do it without our sponsors and just the people of Bryan County and surrounding areas that have been with us through the years.
“Dena and I really appreciate our community and we’re glad that we can take a tragedy and do something to help the public good, and it’s encouraging to us and it’s sad for us to have to do this, but it’s also good for us.”
Results of the 5K and 10K runs can be found at www. coltonsrun.com.
