Admiration Award - Loyd Doering

You hear it said all the time – “I’m too old…”…”I’m not as young as I used to be.” “Well you are younger than me.” “Your young that’s why you can run all those miles.”

Well, you don’t hear that out of Loyd! He celebrated his 80^th birthday this fall. But he continues to run races, set state age group records and volunteer on a regular basis.

Not only does he run but he also refs soccer which requires many hours on your feet…He often does this after he has been running.

But he does not complain about being old – NO WAY! In fact, he is proud of it and gives the rest of us no excuses.

So he runs the races but that’s not all….he is also the cone putter outer and in charge of the course sentries for the Rocket City Marathon. Let me just explain what this requires and I am only guessing…

• Hours of phone time to call and recruit 50 or more people needed to sentry the marathon course. And you know you don’t just make one call and you have all the volunteers you need…This alone is quite a job!
• Once he has them convinced them to volunteer he has to explain in detail to each one of them their responsibilities…More talk time!
• Most important then Loyd and his crew are out on the marathon course hours before the marathon start putting out hundreds of cones. Oh! And then they have to go back and pick them up….miles and miles of cones.

Today I would like to recognize Loyd Doering with the Admiration Award for not only his running but his services. We can all admire this determination to not sit around and be old but to live young.