SKOWHEGAN — Three Skowhegan Area High School students will ride their longboards from Ellsworth to Old Orchard Beach beginning Sunday to raise awareness and cash for a cure for breast cancer.
Connor Reeves and Jacob Weese, both 17, and Ethan Johnson, 16, will hop on their 42-inch longboards for the 150-mile, four-day trek they are calling Boarding for Boobies.
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“We could have said ‘boarding for breast cancer,’ yeah, that’s a cool name, but Boarding for Boobies — we’re trying to reach adults, but we’re trying to get to the kids, to the younger group of people as well,” Reeves said. “It just seems to be a more modern way of saying it, and I really don’t think it’s offensive.”
The boys said they had planned a summer boarding trip and when Jacob’s mother suggested they do something for breast cancer, they said they would. Weese’s aunt, Carla Tibbets of Dexter, is a breast cancer survivor, he said.
“Originally we were going to do a trip on our own, but my mom said ‘you guys should do it for a cause,'” Weese said. “Then on our trip to practice it, me and Connor decided to do it for breast cancer. And we told Ethan and he was pumped for it, and he wanted to do it, too.”
The boys will ride their boards with backpacks, sleeping bags, a tent and a change of socks and underwear, bottled water and Clif Bars, Reeves said. They will ride 30 miles on days one and three, and 43 and 42 miles on days two and four.
With considerable media attention even before they start on Sunday, the boys said they already had raised more than $700 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Passionately Pink Program and Cure-Maine. Their goal is $1,000.
Reeves will be a senior at Fryeburg Academy this fall, where he will concentrate on music and drama studies. While at Skowhegan Area High School, he was active in drama and speech and played a little football, he said. Weese is a standout in track and field events, especially shot put, javelin, discus and the 100-meter dash and plays football.
Johnson is quarterback of the Skowhegan football team, captain of the basketball team and president of the school’s National Honor Society.
The boys, who have been friends in Skowhegan since grade school, will leave Ellsworth about 10:30 a.m. Sunday and will ride down U.S. Route 1, then switch to some of the coastal back roads and then back to Route 1. They plan to arrive in Old Orchard Beach Wednesday.
They are scheduled to spend the first night at Searsport Shores Campground. The second night will be spent at Duck Puddle Campground in Nobleboro and the third night camped in the yard of a friend of Reeves’ aunt in Brunswick.
In addition to accepting donations during the four-day trip, they also will sell bracelets for $5 and bumper stickers for $2.
They are accepting checks written to Susan G. Komen For The Cure care of Connor Reeves, 90 Robin Court, Skowhegan ME, 04976. Boarding for Boobies also has a Facebook page, which will be updated daily via Reeves’ phone.
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
dharlow@centralmaine.com
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