InBuckeye
Date: 04-16-08
Article Link: http://inbuckeye.com/NEWS/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?mid1=411&&ArticleID=464&&name=c&&id=1

Teens (and younger) bike through Buckeye spreading the green message
By Hal DeKeyser
April 16 , 2008


Sydney Fuller is 10 years old, in the fourth grade. She came though Buckeye while riding her bike across America, east to west, bottom to top, to spread the word about living environmentally conscious.

Top that.

Fuller and a dozen or so of other Seattle-area kids started in Washington, D.C. nearly two weeks ago, and they passed through Buckeye on their way to Wickenburg, then Las Vegas, California and back to Seattle. By Buckeye, the group had logged 3,222 miles – about halfway through.

The journey, which is chronicled on the group’s blog site, began a few years ago in the classroom of Chief Sealth High School teacher Gary Thomsen. He challenged students to commit themselves to preserving their world, and a mini-movement was born.

Tyrone Hall-Deal, a high school senior also on the cross-country tour that wended its way through Buckeye, recalls his teacher’s call to arms.

“He said, ‘Do you want to do something for the environment?’ “ Hall-Deal recalled.

“Yeah.”

Next thing, they were cleaning out a weed-choked arroyo called Pelly Place Ravine, and it snowballed.

The ride started March 31 in Washington. D.C., and it’s scheduled to end April 22 in hometown of Seattle. Fuller says they’ve been averaging about 200 miles a day. Hall-Deal set the average speed at about 18 miles an hour, but they got up past 40 coming down the hill from Santa Fe, N.M.
Jeff_Caler_State_Farm_Insurance

“It snowed when we were there,” Fuller interjected.

Hall-Deal said the coolest part of the trip has been riding through small towns, just a few miles that take 10 minutes. The hardest part has been the mountains, the hardest of which are in front of them. So is Death Valley.

Fuller likes the idea that she’s encouraging people to think about how they live, and that it’s “not just us, but people can make a difference in the environement.”

The toughest part, being the smallest and youngest, is just keeping up.

“I have a smaller bike then them,” she said, “so I have to work twice as hard.”

The group pulled into Buckeye mid-afternoon on Saturday and got a session with Dave Whittaker of Buckeye’s Community Development Department, about what the town has been doing to push green building and environmental consciousness. Following that, they got a them-only tour of the Buckeye Museum before pushing on to Wickenburg.

InBuckeye.com photos by Hal DeKeyser

Send a friend to InBuckeye.com. Spread local news in Buckeye.