A race to remember a longtime guidance counselor at Pella Christian High School will return for the final time in April. 

The 19th Annual Gene Van Wyk 5k Memorial Run/Walk will be held on Saturday, April 4th at 8 a.m. with packet pickup, followed by announcements at 8:40 am and the race at 9 am on Eagle Lane. Sandra Fancher with the Gene Van Wyk Memorial says that while they have enjoyed hosting the event, Sandra and her brother Russ Van Wyk made the decision to transition to a competition inspired by Gene’s legacy. 

“I’ll just take you back about a year ago. Russ called me, which can be a little scary, and said ‘I have this idea.’ And I was like, oh boy, and he goes, ‘let’s do a weight lifting or bench press competition.’ I told him, ‘I know nothing about that Russ, nothing at all. But he kind of set in motion that maybe that’s the next transition for the Gene Van Wyk Memorial, that it needs to be a bench press, and I said well let’s run this for a couple years together and see how this works. It was so successful this year that we decided this will be our last race, and we will transition the Gene Van Wyk Memorial to bench press.”

Gene founded Pella Christian’s weightlifting program and was an early advocate for organized school weightlifting tournaments. Hear more about the Gene Van Wyk Memorial Run/Walk on today’s Let’s Talk Pella. Find registration details here.