Annual run honoring Chattanooga s Fallen Five to be held at Tennessee Riverpark movie, photos, Times Free Press
Annual run honoring Chattanooga’s Fallen Five to be held at Tennessee Riverpark [movie, photos]
Erlanger Health System President and CEO Kevin Spiegel speaks during a press conference about the Chattanooga Heroes Run at the Hubert Fry Center on Mon., June Five, 2017, at the Tennessee Riverpark in Chattanooga, Tenn. For the 2nd year in a row, a July sixteen run/walk event will be held to commemorate the anniversary of the fatal shootings of five servicemen in Chattanooga.
Photo by Erin O. Smith
Gallery: Annual July sixteen Heroes Run to be held in Tennessee Riverpark
This year's event will help fund the construction of a permanent memorial at the Tennessee Riverpark.
The Chattanooga Heroes Run raised $15,000 for the installation, but the event's organizers have made a few switches they hope will help raise even more, the most notable being that it will be held on the Riverpark instead of Amnicola Highway.
"This year we are looking forward to another successful year," Erlanger CEO Kevin Spiegel said at a news conference Monday afternoon. The event is introduced by Erlanger's Level One Trauma Center.
Terror in Chattanooga
Heroes Run
When: Saturday, July 15
Race embarks eight a.m.
1-mile kids run ten a.m.
Location: Tennessee Riverpark
Cost: Online registration for 5-mile walk/run — $35
Onsite registration (opens at six a.m.) — $40
Gallery: Chattanooga Heroes' Run
Participants will begin the 5-mile course at the Naval Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center and walk by the location on the Riverpark reserved for the eventual memorial before ending at the Hubert Fry Center.
More switches will include a "stroller corral" at the commencing area for those who wish to bring youthfull children, a 1-mile kids run and a block party hosted by Rock Creek with food trucks and vendors.
During Monday's news conference, public officials said the event and the memorial it will help produce are intended to mark the tragedy in a tangible way and proceed supporting the victims' families.
"I don't believe that we've ever seen the outpouring of support we witnessed in the aftermath of that event," Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger said. "It's exactly what this community is all about."
He thanked military members as well as the authorities who responded to the shooting, telling they demonstrated why they train so diligently for the unimaginable.
"We hope you never need them, but when you do, they're ready for these incidents," he said.
It is unclear what the Riverpark memorial will look like or who will design it, but Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke said a nationwide request for proposals had been sent out to net a multiplicity of American artists and designers.
"That has elicited an amazing response," he said. "Fifty-five artists responded."
Of those 55, three will be selected by a committee later this week to visit the location and submit design proposals.
"This is going to be a tremendous asset for our community," Berke said. "I know that we'll end up with something we can all be proud of."
Katelyn Kirnie, the city's director for public art in Chattanooga, said she and the rest of the committee will be looking at the artists' past work to determine who the final contenders will be for what is estimated to be a $750,000 installation, paid for by the city and county.
"That will kind of fluctuate depending on what the proposal is," Kirnie said. "Hopefully not above that."
Everyone from bronze sculptors to designers of contemporary, abstract spaces are in the running, so Kirnie couldn't speak to what she imagines the installation will ultimately look like by its hoped-for completion date of July 16, 2019.
"It's a broad range of styles and backgrounds," she said.