HS vaulter fights abdominal cancer (CO)

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.durangoherald.com/asp-bin/ar ... 0504_5.htm

Track meet turns into Bayfield community benefit

May 4, 2007
By Gregory Moore | Herald Sports Writer
It's not often that a high school track meet turns into a communitywide event, but that's exactly what's planned for Saturday's Multi-League Track Championships in Bayfield.

The meet, which will feature 20 teams in addition to the host Wolverines, will serve as the league championship for schools in the Intermountain League, the San Juan League and the Southern Peaks League.

It will also be a fundraising event for a Bayfield athlete who at the moment is far from the Pine River Valley, but still close to the hearts of the community's residents.

Samantha McClure, a Bayfield pole vaulter, has missed this season - and virtually her entire sophomore year in school - battling abdominal cancer.

Right now Sam and her father, Bayfield chiropractor Dan McClure, are in Germany, where she is undergoing treatment. Because her disease has proven resistant to conventional treatment, this is not the first time the pair has traveled out of the area for treatment.

It's been a long year for both of them, and an expensive one. And Saturday's meet has become Bayfield's turn to let them know how much they've been missed.

"I thought it would be a natural to do a fundraiser at a track meet, with Dan being the pole vault coach for so long," said Dan Ford, who has set up a fundraising account for the McClure's at both the Bayfield and Durango branches at Pine River Valley Bank.

"Dan's been associated with Bayfield athletics for 20 years, as a coach and a trainer, and he's devoted a great deal of his time to the student athletes here."

Ford has helped organize a live remote broadcast at the meet by KRSJ, and as part of the fundraising effort, the gate receipts for the event will be donated to the fund.

To help out, BHS students and parents will be at the meet selling water bottles emblazoned with their message to Sam McClure: Got Love/Got Hope/Got Sam.


"You know, there are many caring individuals in this community, and they've always stepped up and cared for people in need," said BHS track coach Vernon Kimball, who will be the main conductor at Saturday's meet.

"Dan's done so much for our track program over the years, we figured this was the least we could do."

As a teacher and a coach, Kimball added that there's been no way to replace Sam McClure at BHS this season, either.

"Sam has the kind of personality I really enjoy," he said. "She's not afraid to speak her mind, and for a young lady, she has a very clear idea of where she wants to go and what she wants to do.

"As a pole vaulter, she's a very talented athlete," Kimball added.

"She was third at the state meet last year as a freshman."

Saturday's meet is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. at BHS' Wolverine Country Stadium. The event should run well into the afternoon, but Ford is hoping the fundraising effects will last much longer.

"It's been a tough year at Bayfield High School, with the two students killed in the traffic accident in Hesperus and this, too," he said. "But this has certainly rallied a lot of people around Sam and her family."

[rainbowgirl28]

Aww sad. I ran into her Myspace page and it appears she lost her battle with cancer this summer

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... d=37578606

http://www.fourcornerswebdesign.com/sam.htm

[vault3rb0y]

This is really sad. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. It puts this whole world in perspective, makes you value every healthy day we have to live and to vault.