Randy Bannor

In 1998, I had a friend diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) or what’s commonly known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”. If you’re unfamiliar with ALS, it’s a disease that paralyzes your body all while keeping your brain at 100% functionality. ALS affects both upper and lower motor neurons, meaning patients with the disease begin to experience muscle weakening over time, which eventually shuts down the human body. Describing ALS as horrible and if you’ve ever had some exposure or know someone who has been diagnosed with the disease, you know just how horrible this can be.

The pushback against ALS started for me in 1999 when four of us received pledges and rode 2,020 miles by snowmobile around Lake Superior, bound and determined to raise money for ALS. For us four in 1999, snowmobiling was the conduit to raising money and we ended up completing the trip in 10 days raising $15,000. The four men pioneering this effort in 1999 (Randy Bannor, Greg Sorenson, Dennis Nelson, and Larry Bannor). Our mission was simple and clear, it was to help people with ALS by raising money to fight against the disease. We had personal ties to those affected by ALS, and we knew we needed to put together something … something to help. As I noted above, the result of that initial effort in 1999, raising just $15,000, has evolved into a total of $17,000,000 raised to battle ALS or what’s commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease over the past 25 years. Following the “ALS Circle Tour in 1999” we came together again and looked at what we could do to continue raising money for the disease and helping people that needed it. As soon as our ride ended, we again began looking for ways to help as I had a friend with an early diagnosis of ALS and one of our original four riders from 1999, had a father recently diagnosed with ALS. The bottom line is the disease has hit home since I was familiar with it, and we knew we needed to continue fighting.