Annual Fun Run honors two those that left the world too quickly

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – This yr, an annual Fun Run honored two individuals who died unexpectedly in a December automobile crash. One was a Washburn University professor who made a distinction to college students and marathon runners.

The Sunflower Striders Running Club held its seventeenth annual “Labor Your Legs Fun Run and Walk” on Monday, Sept. 1, a free three-mile run across the Washburn University campus.

This yr, the membership determined to carry the Fun Run to honor the late Professor Dave Provorse and his spouse, Marcia.

Dave was a professor of psychology at Washburn for almost 34 years.

• He taught six completely different graduate programs
• Oversaw three medical practicums
• Accounted for almost one-third of the grasp’s program curriculum
• Chaired over 60 grasp’s theses
• Earned the Washburn Ned Fleming Teaching Award in 2010
• Served as chair of Washburn’s Psychology Department

And, taught a marathon coaching class there for greater than 20 years via Washburn’s Kinesiology Department. In that point, he helped virtually 500 college students obtain the purpose of ending a marathon.

As effectively as supervising graduate college students conducting Mental Skills for Performance Enhancement teams for the ladies’s soccer, softball, and basketball groups, and the lads’s and ladies’s monitor and discipline and tennis groups.

The Provorses’ daughter, Amanda Strassburg, was on the Fun Run.

“To put my parents into words, I would say this [referring to the event] is my parents,” mentioned Strassburg. “The people that are here this morning are my parents, just their legacy, and their lives were built on connection and a love for the outdoors and physical fitness, and they were always going somewhere and doing something, and bringing people together in a way that memorializes them is just incredible.”

“What I miss most about my parents is the impact that they had on my children’s lives. They were the heart and soul of our family, and like I said, they brought us together. They kept us together, and my children were their pride and joy, and what I miss most is having them around for my family.“

While the event was free, donations made from the event will go towards the purchase of a memorial statue to be placed on Shunga Trail in honor of the Provorses.

The remainder will go towards the Provorse Educational Fund that provides scholarships to students earning a master’s degree in Washburn’s Department of Psychology. Donations can be made at the Fun Run’s website.

About the Sunflower Striders Running Club

The Sunflower Striders Running Club put on the event in partnership with the Washburn University Foundation & Alumni Association and the Washburn University College of Arts & Sciences.

Club President Paul Wagner says when the club first started, they had about 50 people, and it has grown slightly with about 250 attending Monday’s Fun Run.

“Come out. Put one foot in front of the other one,” mentioned Wagner. “That’s where we all started, and we have group runs every day of the week now, and so if you can run with somebody. We have our mission: no one left behind. And it’s better in a group, and so, you know, we’ll find somebody that’s at your pace, and if you improve, you can move up in the pace. So, we have everything from walking to ‘we have real stallions’ who can run, but we, you know, just try it.”

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