By rdnewsNOW staff

SEPT. 18, 2022

Dr. Walter Reynolds, who had a passion for community, to be memorialized with annual run

May 27, 2022 | 1:07 PM

The life and memory of the late Dr. Walter Reynolds, who was the victim of a killing in summer 2020 inside his Red Deer clinic, will be honoured on Sept. 18.

That day, friends, family, and many more community members, organizers hope, will run in his honour, in the first annual Dr. Walter Reynolds 1km/5km/10km Memorial Walk/Run.

Kelly Sampson, a close family friend who is organizing the family-friendly event, says it is an opportunity for the community to come together and celebrate Reynolds’ life.

“We find a lot of people are still carrying grief from what happened. I was at a local brewery putting up a poster recently, and a lady tapped me on the shoulder to ask if she could have one of the posters. Then she just burst into tears, saying that she’s a nurse and explaining how Walter’s death affected her and coworkers,” says Sampson.

Dr. Walter Reynolds at Mud Hero (left) and teaching students about his profession (right). (Photos supplied by the Reynolds family)

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“This run could be a way of helping people share their grief and letting it go. At the run, we will have a box with cards so people can share a memory they have of Dr. Reynolds, and those will be shared with the family to help them heal.”

Sampson says Walter’s wife Anelia, and their two daughters — who are still participating in team sports — are doing about as well as could be expected, given the magnitude of their “immeasurable loss.”

“There are good days, and there are incredibly sad days. Grief can be triggered by song, a smell, a place, a date, or activity, and it’s a constant reminder that the person you loved most on this Earth is gone without having been able to say goodbye,” she says. “What the family has had to endure is simply unfair.”

Now, the focus, Sampson says, is building up Dr. Reynolds’ legacy, not only with an annual run, but by having two baseball diamonds in Oriole Park named after him. Work is ongoing with The City of Red Deer to make that a reality.

“It’s my personal mission to ensure the girls feel, know and see how valued their dad was and is. I want for them to want to give back like he did, through service and gratitude,” she says. “We owe it to Walter and his family to show them that we do remember him and always will. We’ll never forget our friend.”

All proceeds from the run will benefit two causes which were close to Dr. Reynolds’ heart: the Red Deer Hospice Society and various Red Deer youth sports initiatives.

Dr. Reynolds, who hailed from South Africa, will have his heritage honoured also with the phrase ‘Hardloop soos die wind’ on the backs of official run t-shirts.

“That is an Afrikaans saying and it translates to ‘Run like the wind,'” says Sampson. “It’s also a phrase he’d always shout to his daughters at their baseball games.”

Register for the run now at drreynoldsrun.ca.

RELATED: Red Deerians gather for National Day of Mourning at Bower Ponds

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