97/16 - Prince George's Weekly

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Seniors Day all set for BCNE THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019

DYNAMIC DUO MADE SPORTS HISTORY CHRISTINE HINZMANN 97/16 staff

Sports icons Tom Masich and Dick Voneugen collaborated to make things happen in Prince George that changed Canadian history. They’ve known each other for more than 40 years. Together and apart, they have played key parts in growing the sports culture of Prince George. Masich started the Prince George Track and Field Club in 1973 after the last one closed in 1967. The first event where Masich and Voneugen met was the Corporate Cup Track and Field event that took place in 1979 that saw big business bring their finest athletes to test their mettle. “At one time we had 52 corporations that brought teams to the event,” Masich said. There were 250 competitors in its first year. Masich was an organizer and Voneugen, a long-distance runner, was on a team called The Strays because his place of work was too small to put a team together so he gathered an assortment of athletes to create a team. “Dick and I were involved with the Corporate Cup for several years and then aligned ourselves again for Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion tour around the world,” Masich, a sprinter and long-jumper, said of the event that began in 1985. Voneugen explained they coordinated a busload of local volunteers who followed Hansen from Prince George to Crescent Spur, near McBride. “Every kilometre another person would come out of the bus to run with Rick,” Voneugen said. Hansen knew Masich and Voneugen previously when he participated in the 1979 Prince George to Boston Marathon, which was also the run Terry Fox did as he considered the possibility of running his Marathon of Hope, which took him across the country to raise funds and awareness for cancer research. After the Prince George test run, Fox called his

97/16 photo by James Doyle

Tom Masich, left, and Dick Voneugen, right, go through scrapbooks dating back to 1955 that detail their impact on the sporting community in Prince George. mother to tell her he was going to do the massive run across the country. During the original Prince George to Boston marathon, runners were transported to the Salmon River bridge and they would run into town but it wasn’t especially safe so organizers Masich and Voneugen decided to make it a loop around town instead. “That’s where the distance came from – 17 miles from the bridge to Spruceland,” Voneugen said. “Then we developed a circuit in town – eight and a half miles and then if you wanted to do the 17 miles you’d do it twice.” There was a very special reason the race was called Prince George to

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Boston Marathon. “I wanted to give the overall winner a free trip to the Boston Marathon the following spring,” Masich said. Trans-Canada Air Lines sponsored the flights and the track club raised funds to cover the hotel stay and meals, Masich added. When the Prince George Road Runners took over the race they switched the name to the Labour Day Classic and kept the race intact at two loops of eight and a half miles. The chair that Terry Fox sat in while visiting with Tom and wife Anne has been kept in the Masich family as a precious keepsake. Those who visit the downtown statue

of Terry Fox can take note that on Terry’s singlet is the number 192 that he wore during the 1979 Prince George to Boston Marathon. The singlet on the statue marks the significance of the impact Prince George had on the Marathon of Hope. As Masich and Voneugen took a moment to reflect on those events, Voneugen got a little sentimental. “And in all these years, I don’t think we ever had a cross word, did we, Tom?” Dick asked. “No, I don’t do those kinds of puzzles, Dick,” Tom deadpanned. Then it was back to business. Continued on page 2

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