Walk to fight Lou Gehrig’s disease draws record crowd


Nearly 8,000 participated in the JT Walk to Defeat ALS along the Virginia Beach boardwalk Sunday morning. (Gary C. Knapp | Special to The Virginian-Pilot)

By John Warren
The Virginian-Pilot
© October 20, 2008
VIRGINIA BEACH

The weather was supposed to be good Sunday.

But t he Thompson family has learned not to count on supposed-to-be.

It’s a lesson that developer Bruce Thompson and his family learned after his son, Josh, was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a year and a half ago. Before they and doctors accepted the diagnosis, they slogged through a heap of promises that didn’t pan out.

At midnight Saturday , as the wind picked up at the Oceanfront and the sky filled with clouds , Bruce Thompson made the call to move the JT Walk Beach Blast indoors, to the Virginia Beach Convention Center.

The Walk to Defeat ALS – which preceded the Beach Blast – was still held at the Boardwalk, through winds so strong they blew the doors open at the Hilton Hotel at 31st Street Park. But the event drew participants estimated at more than 7,000, which broke national attendance records for ALS walks.

Josh Thompson, 34, sat in a wheelchair on a second-floor balcony, surveying the sea of JT Walk team T-shirts. He was bundled up against the wind, wearing a ball cap, his father standing behind him.

Many of the walkers looked up to the balcony as they passed, waved and called out hellos. Josh Thompson’s father and wife, Joy, waved back. Thompson doesn’t have use of his limbs now, and he can hardly speak. But his emotion was clear.

“It makes your heart feel glad,” said Faith Luna of Virginia Beach, standing on the patio under Thompson’s balcony.

“You don’t hear much about ALS, really,” said walker Dean Richards of Williamsburg. Richards was walking with Greg’s Group, friends of Greg Soltys of Williamsburg, diagnosed with the disease less than two years ago.

“Breast cancer awareness is everywhere you look,” agreed Richards’ wife, Bonnie.

“Hopefully,” Dean Richards said, “this will help.”

It has already helped promote awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , said Ken Nicholls, president of the D.C./Maryland/Virginia ALS chapter. “Way beyond Hampton Roads, this will put us on the map,” Nicholls said.

Before it began, it was clear the Oceanfront ALS walk, one of 150 in the country, would draw a large crowd. The previous high for members in a single team was 547 . The JT Walk team had more than 3,600.

In terms of money, the Oceanfront ALS walk seemed likely to overtake a record-holding Long Island, N.Y., walk, which raised $906,282 in 2007.

Bruce Thompson predicted more than $1 million would be raised.

After the walk, the crowd moved to the nearby convention center, where a sound stage, food concessions and inflatable children’s toys ha d been set up.

Bruce Thompson found irony in the weather, which didn’t turn out as expected.

Sunday was going to be 64 degrees and sunny. His son, a champion surfer, had a one-in-50,000 chance of having ALS; he was too young to be in the disease’s target demographic.

“One thing I’ve learned in dealing with this disease – you can’t control it,” Bruce Thompson said. “It’s like the weather; the way it is, it isn’t up to us.”



John Warren, (757) 222-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com

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