By BUD KENNEDY
bud@star-telegram.com
What happens when 1,700 walkers squeeze onto the same Trinity Trails path?
Thanks to some quick thinking and goodwill by two charities, we won’t find out.
Potential disaster had loomed Saturday along the river north of downtown Fort Worth, where double-booked charity walks have narrowly averted a head-on collision.
Both the Run for Their Lives 5K and the Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk are promoting events Saturday morning.
Both starting at LaGrave Field.
Both at 8:30 a.m.
Both with permits from different government agencies.
"We have our permit, just like we’ve had for years, and then we get a surprise phone call telling us somebody else is using the trail," said Theresa Hocker, executive director of the Fort Worth-based regional chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.
All she knew was that City Hall sold her a permit and charged her $470.
Across town, one of Scott Hardin’s friends from Castleberry Church of Christ was going into an Applebee’s when he saw the Memory Walk poster.
"I couldn’t believe somebody else was using the trail," he said. "We
booked the trail."
His all-volunteer Run for Their Lives 5K is in its eighth year. It raises money for the National MPS Society, supporting children with a rare genetic condition.
All he knew was that he had a free permit from the Tarrant Regional Water District, which governs the trails along the river floodway.
When he made a phone call, water district officials told both race directors to come running.
Now, both walks have agreed to share the trail, with the Run for Their Lives 5K starting a few minutes early from the LaGrave Field parking lot and the Memory Walk lining up inside the stadium for a 9 a.m. start.
The comedy of confusion extended to LaGrave, where two different Fort Worth Cats officials granted the charities free use of the property, just as the Cats always have during their eight generous but unprofitable seasons in their historic riverbank home.
"This all happened by accident," said the Cats’ Dick Smith. "But we work with lots of charities. We can work with two at once."
The water district’s Rick Carroll grants the permits.
"We got everybody together," he said. "It just shows you how popular these trails are."
As it turns out, neither event had enough permits.
A Trinity Trails event crossing city park property — Heritage Park is past the North Main Street bridge — requires both a water district permit and a city permit, officials from both agencies agreed Tuesday.
And that $470.
You’d think we could take better care of our charities.
Bud Kennedy’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 817-390-7538, Twitter @budkennedy
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