Ride promotes safety, remembrance

Parents, children and members of the community gathered at Pepin Park Saturday to take part in the sixth annual Kellen Lund Memorial Bike Ride to promote driver awareness and bicycle safety.

The event is named after Kellen Lund, a local 9-year-old boy who died in July 2009 when he was struck by a tractor-trailer while walking his bicycle across the viaduct on 1st Street and 7th Avenue. Each year Kellen's mother, Jeri Zorn-Erickson, organizes it.

"It gets bigger and bigger every year," said Zorn-Erickson of the ride that started out as a celebration of Kellen's life for family and friends.

As she was talking, she was directing activities just before the start of this year's bike ride. People were setting up tables, signing up for the ride and giving out T-shirts.

This year, an estimated 375 people showed up for activities that included 3 -and 5-mile bicycle rides. The route for the three-mile ride started at Pepin Park on 6th Avenue, looping around Sunnyside Intermediate School and Havre High School, before coming back down 6th Avenue.

The five-mile ride went up 14th Street to Saddle Butte and the Bill Baltrusch Nature Trail, looped around the high school and then back down 6th Avenue. The three-mile ride began at 10:30 a.m., while the five-mile ride kicked off a short time later.

Volunteers in fluorescent vests stood at each intersection directing traffic, ensuring safe passage to riders and those who walked their respective route. Search-and-rescue riders mounted on bikes followed behind ready to aid those who got lost or fell off their bikes.

Other activities included a "slowest race," in which participants aimed to go between two cones at the slowest speed without putting their feet down as well as a "fastest race," in which those who took part wove in and out of a row of cones. The one who completed that course first won. Festivities also consisted of a free barbeque and an auctioning off of bikes.

"I don't ask anyone for bikes (for the auction), they just come to me," said Zorn-Erickson, adding that she received donations through text messages and Facebook comments.

This year, 21 bikes were donated. Those who took part could enter a raffle to win two airbrushed designer helmets donated by Custom Collision Repair.

Candidates for each raffle placed a piece of paper with their name in it in a box next to the bike or designer helmet they wanted. Names were drawn before the race and winners announced.

Even seven years later, Zorn-Erickson is still deeply affected by that day. She insists that her second-oldest son, Ryker O'Leary, who was 4 years old when his brother died, be watched by an adult when crossing the street to go to his dad's house. He is "fairly limited" about where he can go on his bike.

Yet like so many parents, Zorn-Erickson acknowledges it can be a challenge to get kids to follow simple safety measures, especially as they get older. Despite what happened to her family, Ryker often doesn't want to wear a helmet.

"The only way I get to talk him into wearing a helmet is he gets to wear his older brother's helmet."

Since it was first put on in 2010, the Memorial Bike Ride has taken on a life of its own in Havre. Every year businesses and individuals from police officers to businesses and volunteers pitch in to put on this event.

"We've had the same sponsors, the same people since day one," said Zorn-Erickson.

Havre Ford and Master Sports for example, give money each year to the memorial ride. This year the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 601 donated 90 helmets to be given out free of charge. Rod's Drive-In provided the hamburgers while both Grateful Bread and Wolfers' Diner donated the bread for the barbeque.