What is a hero? There are so many different kinds of people that we classify as heroes. There are the everyday heroes, as well as sports and world heroes. Those are all really good people who have done extraordinary things, but what about the people that have affected the entire world? There aren't many of those heroes that are real and not made up and put into a comic strip. When I think of the word hero, I think of Terry Fox. It may just be because there is a lot of talk going around about him this year since it's the 25th anniversary of the Marathon of Hope, but think of what he did.

Terry Fox was an everyday hero, who changed the world by himself. Terry was diagnosed with cancer, his leg was amputated to kill the cancer above his right knee, and he was given an artificial leg. After going through the amputation he decided that he didn't want anybody else to go through the same suffering and decided to go and make a difference. He was going to run across Canada and raise money for cancer research. How much money? He wanted a million, amounting to a dollar from each Canadian at the time. So on April 12th, 1980 Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope in St. John's, Nova Scotia.

Sadly, Terry had to stop his run in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The cancer had came back, but this time it was in his lungs. That fateful day was September 1st, 1981. He had achieved one of his goals, raising a million dollars, but he hadn't finished his run yet. I was watching a Terry Fox Anniversary show on TV last night, and Rolly Fox (Terry's father) said that Terry had ran an extra 900 miles to raise more money in Toronto and Halifax. If he hadn't had done that he would have stopped in Regina, Saskatchewan and been that much closer to his destination Coquitlam, British Columbia.

Now on the 25th anniversary of his run, over $360,000000 has been raised for cancer research and it's all thanks to one man who had the dream to change the world. To me, my friends, someone who made such an impact on the world and has a foundation that gets millions of dollars every year is a hero. India has the largest Terry Fox run in the world. They have over 2,000,000 people participate at their Marathon of Hope, a 10K run.

So do you think Terry is a hero? Why? Post in the BBS below.

-RaRa3810