Whereas last year’s all-night event concluded at 7 a.m. with more than $100,000 in the kitty — a number expanded by several thousand dollars by August, 2008, the cutoff for after-event donating — those bleary-eyed participants still around at the close of this year’s festivities saw more than $110,000 raised, a number sure to increase in coming months.
Among several new highlights this year was the presence of Indianapolis Colts NFL football star Dallas Clark, who took the stage to help kick off the event and delivered a brief but heartfelt talk in which he said he lost his grandfather to cancer, though his mother-in-law is a cancer survivor and expressed his amazement at the energy and spirit displayed at the event.
Clark encouraged his audience — especially young people — not to let technology deter them from an active, healthy lifestyle and said participants in the event made a “tremendous statement” by coming out for the cause. Clark also praised the cancer survivors on hand, calling them “the real heroes.”
Culver Community High School teacher Mike Schwartz, a survivor who, with others, shared a pre-Relay dinner with Clark at the Academies’ Woodcraft camp, said he was impressed with Clark as genuine in his concern at the dinner. Schwartz said Clark told survivors there he was praying for them and he took time to chat and sign autographs, which he continued to do during his two hours-plus at the event.
 Besides Schwartz, faculty and student teams from Culver Community High School were on hand in the form of several teams, including representatives of the school’s CAVS service club, Industrial Technology Club, and more. Culver’s EMS and fire department were represented as were several other community business and individual-related teams. A host of Academies’ student and faculty teams — including one representing the school’s rugby program, with whom Clark spent some time discussing the differences between that sport and his own — made strong showings on and off the track.
Several Culver area restaurants contributed a variety of fare to this year’s Relay, including coffee and breakfast foods to welcome the dawn.
Mirroring some of last year’s event, student writers for the Academies’ Vedette newspaper filled a “blog” (web-log) with observations throughout the night,, which can be viewed via relayforlife.org/culverin.