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Happy Holidays 2006
Running with bells on
The fun run will mark its 24th yuletide.
By JON WILSON
Published December 10, 2006
Dog antlers, jingle bells and green-glow necklaces become high fashion Wednesday evening. Music will roll along Bayshore Drive and across the Vinoy Basin, while candles light the way. The 24th Boley Centers' Jingle Bell Run, more of a moving festival afoot than a competitive event, takes off at 7:30 p.m. from the top of the Pier. Runners, walkers, family pets and very young people in strollers are welcome. One year, a pot-bellied pig joined the crowd. All travel 1 or 3 miles - or perhaps another distance, pedestrian's choice. No one's keeping score. Such is the glory of this 24th annual holiday event, which benefits Boley Centers and its behavioral health programs. There are no race numbers to pin on, no official timing device and no one who really cares whether participants stay behind the official starting line. Nor will a starting pistol's stout report signal them to begin. Someone usually stands on a platform and shakes a stick with bells on it. Then, with a loud cheer, the masses churn forward. Typically, 2,500 people and perhaps as many 3,000 take part, said Jeri Flanagan, Boley's director of development. It's not St. Petersburg's largest running/walking event, but it makes its own argument for being the most exuberant. It took a few years for the run to catch on. About 150 showed up for the inaugural event in 1983. North Shore Pool was the staging area, and it was again in 1984. That year, a few more signed up. St. Petersburg High School, fresh from an appearance in the final of the state football playoffs, sent its band. The musicians stirred the crowd with renditions of St. Pete Will Shine. The 1-mile route - constant since 1988 - takes participants to Bayshore Drive and back. Three miles means a further trek to the right on Bayshore, another right on Fifth Avenue NE in front of the Renaissance Vinoy Resort, a winding excursion around North Shore Pool - and then the return to the Pier. There brownies await.
[Last modified December 9, 2006, 20:08:14]
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