Neighbor News
350 Locals Outrun Smyrna Police
350 Locals Outrun Smyrna Police during sixth annual Spooktacular Chase for Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia. Police still smiling.
By Narayan Sengupta
Saturday, October 18, 2014, was a wonderful day to sleep in. Nonetheless, 350 perfectly sane people awoke, dressed and showed up Smyrna’s City Park while it was still dark and cold. By 7:45 am, they were running, jogging or walking, en masse five kilometers from City Park (across from Campbell High School) to near the duck pond and library, back toward South Cobb Drive and then back to City Park, or what locals call the Haunting Hills.
It’s a lovely course threading through some of Smyrna’s historic and in-filled neighborhoods. Some runners wore Halloween costumes, others pushed strollers with one or even two children while some participated as entire families. They even paid for the privilege.
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What would make people do all this? It’s simple. It’s Smyrna’s sixth annual Spooktacular Chase, and it’s for a great cause: Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia (VRS), located on South Cobb Drive in Smyrna. Vision Rehabilitation Services of Georgia helps blind or visually impaired individuals with tools and techniques to allow them to function on their own in their daily lives.
Pascal Gouteix was there with his three children, Emilie, Jeremy and Julia. He pushed his youngest, Julia, in a race stroller, and said “It’s a great race. Moreover, since Julia is visually impaired, I felt good participating.”
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Ken Crowell was a race safety marshal. His son Sam ran. “The Spooktacular is an annual favorite 5K for our family,” says Ken. “The rolling course is different than the typical boring 5K routes. Plus the VRS folks always have great shirts and prizes.”
The Spooktacular Race also had about 50 volunteers who check in runners and serve as course marshals. And, of course, the Smyrna police were on hand to help ensure runner safety and brought up the rear of the race.
The last word goes to VRS’s former board chair and race committee member Jeff Daxe. He has been on VRS’s board six years. “We don’t have the exact numbers yet for this year,” notes Jeff, “but the Spooktacular Chase raised about $25,000 last year. Every year, thanks to people from Smyrna and the rest of metro Atlanta, this gets better and better. Our objective is to raise even more next year. This is a lot of fun. I encourage others to mark their calendars for October 2015!”
