Northern student part of trio doing horseback cancer fundraiser

A Montana State University-Northern student and two of his friends are traveling horseback across Montana to honor friends and family of poeple who have lost their fight to cancer and people still fighting it.

They are also raising money for cancer research.

Each of the riders are also riding in memory of their family or friends.

Northern student Keagen Stroop said he is riding for great-grandpa and a family friend who lost their battle to cancer.

“What we’re doing is riding horses across the state of Montana like 550-plus miles to raise awareness and then to also raise funds for cancer research and treatment,” another rider, Harry Green, said.

Green said he riding in memory for two family friends

Another rider, Troy Hennes, is riding in memory of his younger brother.

Stroop said the idea to do this came back in January or February of 2018.

“I called Harry up and told him that it would be a pretty cool idea if we rode horses across the state of Montana,” he said. “At the time, it seemed pretty far-fetched and we kind of talked about for awhile, and recently, we had a death in our community from cancer and so then Harry was like, ‘If we do this, we should do it for a cause.’”

Green said they started their horseback journey Friday, June 26, beginning at Bannack Pass.

As of Saturday, Stroop said, they have about 100 miles left to cover, then will be hosting a horse sale featuring some of the horses used in their trip at King’s Arena in Great Falls, Saturday, Aug. 29.

Green said he attends Carroll College in Helena.

His major is biochemistry and molecular biology, he said.

“This summer while we’ve been doing our ride I’ve applied to medical school and so hopefully I’m doing that deal next year,” he said. “I have a strong interest in oncology, so my plan is on pursuing that in medical school.”

Hennes is a business management student at Montana Tech in Butte.

Stroop said his major at Northern is welding, plumbing and pipe fitting.

“My plan after that I guess is start work and become an adult,” he said, laughing.

People interested in donating can visit their GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/ride-it-out-montana .

People also interested in their journey can visit their Facebook page — Ride It Out - MT Against Cancer https://www.facebook.com/Ride-It-Out-MT-Against-Cancer-113120393707827/ .

“When we started this,” Green said, “we talked about this between us three on the ride, we wanted to raise money for these folks and that was kind of our first priority, and then as the ride has gone on we’ve talked to a lot of people and we’ve realized that we can really make an impact just psychologically, and maybe just brighten everyone’s day with this trip.”

“It’s awesome when people donate to us because they are helping cancer patients out, but also I want people to stay positive during these times and maybe look at this trip and to see it as a bright spot,” he added.