Shannon Leary with Travis and her husband, Angus. All three were friends at Tabor Academy.
Shannon knew Travis long before he sat at the helm of the Travis Roy Foundation.
Shannon’s high school sweetheart Angus, now her husband, was Travis’ roommate during their junior and senior years at Tabor Academy. Both Shannon and Angus were some of the first to visit Travis after his accident at as a Boston University freshman, and later spent time with him in Atlanta at the Shepherd Center where Travis was in rehab.
The 20th anniversary of Travis’ injury, compounded with an upcoming big birthday for Shannon, gave her the motivation to run the Boston Marathon for the second time. Her first time completing the marathon was for the National Spinal Cord Injury Association just two years after Travis’ injury.
“20 years is a long time to do anything,” Shannon says. “But when you’re one of the most recruited athletes of your generation and you’re sitting in a wheelchair because of an accident, 20 years feels like several lifetimes.”
Shannon says this year is the perfect time to for her to run and fundraise for the Foundation in honor of Travis and the role he has played in her family’s life. She has already started working on her fundraising event to be held on March 10 in her hometown of Dover, MA. She says the other mothers in her town have already stepped up to donate raffle items and make flyers to help support Shannon and her friend Caroline, who is also running the marathon for the TRF.
Shannon’s goal, of course is “to help contribute, to make a difference to an athlete, who if he could, would run any race by my side.”
DONATE to Shannon’s Boston Marathon fundraiser.
