“I thought I saw some orange T-shirts over there,” junior Hye-Jin Kim said as she peered through pre-dawn darkness, hoping to spot fellow UT Dallas students arriving for the 28th Annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.
The 119 School of Management students who signed up for the 1K walk and 5K run fundraiser for the battle against breast cancer decided to show their solidarity — and figured they could find one another more easily — by dressing in school colors instead of in the trademark pink of the Oct. 16 event.
It was peculiar, though, how much pink could look like orange at 10 to 7 in the morning, at a distance, in the glare of the parking-lot lights of NorthPark Center, where the volunteers gathered. But just when Kim planned to search a different lot, fellow junior Lloyd Paulino appeared out of the gloom. He was followed by Undergraduate Dean Marilyn Kaplan, her recently retired predecessor Mary Chaffin, and other students, faculty, staff, family members and friends, ready to make good on their commitment to the cause.
In all, organizers raised just shy of $1.1 million. The race drew 21,533 participants.
The school’s contingent included neophytes and experienced Race for the Cure participants, a toddler in a stroller, some serious runners, some well-dressed contenders wearing designer jeans and spiky-heeled sandals, and at least two astonished latecomers who labeled as “pure luck” their success in finding fellow team members behind the starting line minutes before the 5K began.
After announcing their presence to John Barden, director of the school’s undergraduate accounting program, late arrivals Paulo Lefki and Justin Potash turned their attention to the pastel-colored fasteners each had been given to attach his registration number to his shirt.
“I’m telling you, it’s a chick magnet,” Lefki said, showing off his distinctive pink clasp.
“That’s because it’s an old-fashioned diaper pin,” someone pointed out to him.
“It is?” he said. “A real diaper pin?”
Lefki and Potash signed up for the race through Barden’s Financial Accounting class.
“Regardless of the extra credit, I love to take part in this kind of extracurricular experience,” said Hye-Jin Kim, also a Barden student.
“I thought it was a good idea,” Paulino said. “Walk for the Cure. How can you go wrong?”
Well-known among School of Management students for connecting students to community-service projects, Barden said he was happy to encourage involvement. But he credited Kaplan as the driving force behind the successful turnout.
Kaplan said the event was an educational opportunity as well as a school-spirit builder and worthy cause. Such group undertakings “engage and enrich our students,” School of Management Dean Hasan Pirkul said. “They give our students a sense of social responsibility and belonging, and strengthen their ties to the school.”