The following account was written by Rock Taylor, "In the early years of the Terry Fox Run, the Espanola event was a community affair. It was sponsored and marshalled by the men of A B Ellis who were members of OPSMTF while the ladies looked after registration along with volunteers from the local community and the Canadian Cancer Society. From 1982 through 1996 it was a 10km course; a race for some, a walk for most. Over the years, people rode horses, bikes, skateboards and in-line skated. We held the event on Sunday afternoon on the national date and despite our every effort to get the community involved, year after year, the vast majority of participants were AB Ellis students and their parents. During that period we raised $98,400."




"Terry’s parents, Betty and Rolly, came to town August 24, 1990 while tracing Terry’s historic route. We put them up in the Pinewood’s honeymoon suite and had a well attended community breakfast the next morning, with local celebrity hockey star Al Secord as a speaker."


"In 1997, race coordinator Rock Taylor, with the full agreement of AB Ellis staff and the wonderfully supportive team at the Terry Fox Foundation, made the decision to make the Espanola Terry Fox Run a school event.

Open to the public, it was held during school time and involved the entire student body. Three different courses were followed depending on grade levels. Our grade 7’s and 8’s walked with the JK’s and K’s, often hand-in-hand. These were wonderful events! We had more parents join the kids than ever did on Sundays.

And oh how the money poured in. We established rewards for funds raised: a KFC luncheon for any student raising $50 and Terry Fox t-shirts for $100. In our best years, we needed three separate days to feed all the KFC kids. For most of those years, all the meals were provided gratis by Robbie McKay and matched with milk, free from Don Farquhar. Both these generous gentlemen are alumni of AB Ellis. T-shirts were usually purchased by the Espanola Lions Club.

The mass walks were fun but the assemblies, both before as motivation and after as celebration were a blast! We sang and danced and shouted. Betty Fox visited again in 1998. Crazy things, promised if huge amounts were raised, always happened with great drama. The world’s ugliest pig was kissed, teachers were hoisted into the rafters, hair cuts were given (not well), staff spent entire days on the roof of the school, students were taped to the wall and one year, the entire assembly was led by Mr. Rock Taylor dressed as Ms. Roxanne Plumber! Each year a willing number of staff members lined up to for “cream pies in the face”, another reward for students raising the largest sums of money."








"It was great fun but the biggest winner was the Terry Fox Foundation. Over the 17 events from 1997 to 2013, AB Ellis raised a staggering $288,235. The high of $23,444 in 2007 placed AB Ellis 5th in the province!"