(uplifting music) (inspiring music) - It's one of the most well-known charity events in Illinois, and every year it grows larger.

I'm talking about the St.

Jude runs.

The Memphis to Peoria run began in 1982, and since then, runners have raised almost $100 million to help fight childhood cancer and support families.

Now a documentary takes us inside one of the most unique fundraisers in the country.

I'm joined by filmmaker Mike Rundle and Mike McCoy, one of the men who came up with "The One Crazy Idea."

So you came up with one crazy idea twice, the original crazy idea, the run, the second one, making a documentary.

- That really wasn't my idea, but they came up with the documentary.

Molly Book and Sarah Solorio, Amy McCoy got ahold of Mike, and I'm glad we did it.

- Well, I mean, everyone in this area especially knows about the run and how much it's grown, and you get a lot of local media coverage, some nice pieces on the news, but what made you want to do a full-length documentary?

- You know, this is the 45th year, and this year we have the opportunity to top the $100 million raise mark.

And I think that people were looking for something to help keep it going for another 45 years.

And getting ahold of Mike and his organization to do this was a good thing.

And it really turned out good.

And we were excited to show it to people.

- Mike Rundle, before you got involved in this, what was your knowledge about St.

Jude?

Certainly being from this area, you heard of it, but did you know a lot about it?

- I knew a little bit.

I, you know, I had family and friends that, you know, when I was growing up, that were participating in various runs.

So I knew a little bit about it.

I did a little bit of reporting actually in high school for the "Times Courier" in East Peoria about, you know, the East Peoria run.

So a little bit of familiarity with it, but, you know, this is just a whole new level of involvement.

So, yeah.

- So this all started last year.

And Mike, tell us how you got involved and then what you did in terms of covering the run.

- So, as Mike mentioned, Sarah, Amy, and Molly came to me and had this idea.

And we were in, I think it was late June of last summer.

And they, you know, I go into our first meeting thinking that, you know, it is coming on the 45th year, it's just gonna be kind of a brand video or something like that.

And they let me know that they were thinking that they wanted kind of a short film for it.

And so that was immediately really exciting for me.

And so we started working out the logistics and everything.

About a month later, we're heading down to Memphis, and myself and a colleague, Lawrence Henderson, traveled with them on the five days back up to Peoria.

And, you know, running on just a little bit of sleep every night and, you know, filming all hours of the day essentially.

But yeah, that was a little bit of the process.

- Mike, like we were talking about earlier, especially with the news coverage, we see you all leave Peoria, and then we see you get back to Peoria, and sometimes we see you at St.

Jude in Memphis.

But in between there, a lot goes on.

Is that kind of the point of the film, to show people the middle... - It is.

I think that they've done a great job of showing that because people, you know, like I said, they see us, we're happy, they see us, we come back, we're happy, and everybody's smiling.

But, you know, when you're traveling in 24 motor homes with 10 people in a motor home, you know, three vans, a bus, four trucks, and two trailers, and getting everybody everywhere, talking about lack of sleep, talking about how do you eat for five days, I think this gave people a really good insight into what the run was all about, which is what the intent was.

- And don't forget the hottest time of the year, too.

- The hottest time of the year.

It is warm.

(group laughing) - Kind of take us through, you mentioned some of the logistics, but what it takes to put this on.

I mean, that's a feat in itself.

- Yeah, you know, we have committees.

You know, we've decided that one or two people can't do this all the time.

So we have some committees, and, you know, right now August is coming up, so we're already gearing up with motor homes, we're gearing up with food, we're gearing up to be sure that we have drivers and cooks, you know, that can drive for the cooks and getting everything ready, doing the checks along the way 'cause we stop every six miles to rotate runners, and, you know, just a lot of logistics, helping people raise money.

You know, this is a fundraising event, not really a run.

So trying to help people raise as much money as we can for the kids of St.

Jude.

- And how many miles between Peoria and Memphis?

- 465.

- Phew.

465, okay.

Now, when you're thinking about covering this and visualizing it, I know you had some drone action going, the footage looks great, by the way.

Did you ever think, okay, maybe I should get out there with a camera and actually run with these guys?

- Tell you what, we actually did do that.

- Did you?

- We did, yeah.

And I'll give another shout out to my colleague Lawrence.

He really took it to another level.

You know, he was sprinting alongside of these folks.

You know, there's a section where they send out the sprinters to do the quick miles, and he went out and ran with them, and everybody was blown away.

And that's one of the reasons I love working with him is 'cause he's somebody that is very willing to, you know, put his body on the line, so to speak.

You know, run in a ditch, you know, all this kind of stuff.

I know Mike's probably shaking his head 'cause, you know, safety is always the number one concern, and thankfully we didn't have any issues with that, and everything worked out well.

But yeah, you know, we had to be on our feet quite a bit, you know, out there on the road with them and, you know, just experiencing that as well.

And, you know, I liked it enough that I'm gonna actually be coming back and running it myself this coming year.

- Good for you.

- So that's saying something, 'cause if anybody knows me, they know I'm not a runner, but it's not what it's about.

So, yeah.

- Mike, you've shown this film twice now.

Once in Peoria, once in Memphis.

- Showed it in Memphis on Friday night.

We went down Friday night and showed it to the Memphis runners.

The hospital has people that they allow to run back with us, give them the time off to go.

So we went down to show them and their families because, you know, getting up here to see it is a little tough on a workday.

So we showed it down there, and it was exciting as it was the first time here.

- And I bet you got a lot of interesting responses.

Like, "Wow, we didn't know you guys went through all this."

- Yeah, it's interesting because the ones we showed here, we had about 180 people at the first one and 130 at the second one at the museum.

And there were a lot of people afterwards that just had their mouth open and said, you know, "We had no idea what went on."

And we always said, well, you know, we're tired when we get home.

We don't just ride in the motor homes.

So I think it showed people a true... they did a great job of showing what the whole event was about.

- I bet this is gonna get you a lot more donations, but will it get you more runners?

- Well, you know, it's interesting 'cause the phone's been almost ringing off the hook.

So, you know, we have 34 additional runs too, in addition to the Memphis run and the communities around here that makes up the whole event.

And to make this event bigger and better, it's gonna count on those communities to continue to grow as we have.

You know, you can only take so many people to Memphis.

We're at about 180 runners all ready to go.

So we hope that it gets us more runners in those communities when other people get to see it.

- Those folks that do the Memphis to Peoria run, do you typically have a lot of people that are repeaters?

- Yep, right, we only had, I think we only had like 14 new people last year.

So the turnover, you know, it's mostly they're sort of younger people.

They're not my age, trust me.

And so, you know, some of 'em get married, some of 'em move away, some of 'em have job changes.

So we lose some every year, but yet we gain some too.

And now we're getting in a good group of young people, a younger group coming.

And I think this film will help us continue to recruit.

- I wanna ask both of you this question, we'll start with you, Mike Rundle.

What was your favorite part of the experience, whether behind the scenes or the finished product?

- I mean, there's just so much that went into it.

You know, I think coming over the Bob Michel Bridge, getting back into Peoria, I think that moment will live with me forever just because it's obviously the end of the run.

It was kind of a symbolic end of the traveling back for myself and for Lawrence, you know, after putting so much time and effort into filming the whole week.

And, you know, you see in the film the group kind of cresting the bridge and coming over, and that moment will just kind of always live in my brain for sure.

It was very cool.

- What about you, Mike?

- I think, you know, every year I breathe a sigh of relief when we leave and go over the bridge.

I breathe a sigh of relief when we leave Memphis and head back.

The big relief is when we walk across the bridge; we don't run across the bridge, we walk across the bridge.

We have every year.

And the intent on that is to let people really get a grasp of what they've just done.

Pretty cool.

- Yeah.

- So with this being, coming up on 45 years now, gunning for a $100 million total mark, is anything gonna be different with the run this year?

I'm sure you guys learn a lot every year and make changes as you need to.

Is anything different this year?

- I don't think so.

Basically, it's all gonna be the same.

I mean, you know, it's a special year.

We got a couple of special awards we're gonna do and things like that.

But I think, you know, every year we tell people, if you have an idea on the run, we want to hear it when we get back.

Don't talk to us about it when we go, because we know what we're doing, we got it set, and we can can't change it.

It's really hard.

But we make changes, some little tweaks every year, but basically for the last 20 years, it's been about the same.

- Sure.

Well, I remember two years ago I was lucky enough to go on the Corvette ride, and that was a lot of fun, and talk about well planned and meticulous with details, and it went off without a hitch other than the rain.

- Yeah, yeah.

The ride's coming up, and, you know, May 14th will be the... the drive comes up again, I mean, on May 14th.

So we got a Corvette for you, again, if you want to go, you know?

- I'll tell you, it's tempting.

But it's a great event too for people who may not feel like running or can't run, doing the Corvette route, and there's other motorcycles.

- Motorcycles.

I think the biggest thing that I heard this year was a young guy went, and he said that he was gonna St.

Jude Hospital, and he walked in and he said, "I was expecting a hospital, a St.

Francis or an OSF or any hospital building."

He said, "I had no idea it was 66 acres worth of research."

And I think that's another good point that the film points out, that this isn't just a hospital where you walk in the front door and they send you to a room.

That's not what they do there.

- Yeah, it's an amazing campus.

Did you have an opportunity, Mike, to check out the campus experience?

- I did, yeah.

- What did you think of that?

- I'll just echo what Mike's saying.

It's fantastic.

It's one of the highlights of the tour for me that we got was going into a research tower, and, you know, they have just like clear glass windows on all sides of the labs, and you can actually see the equations being written in dry erase on the windows and notes and things like this that the doctors and the researchers are actively working on.

And I think that was just, it was really special to be able to see that and then go outside and see this few hundred runners that are, you know, dedicated to helping keep that going.

So... - So I've seen clips of the documentary, and like I said, it looks really good.

I guess I'd ask both of you, what's the overall tone?

Is it more educational, is it more dramatic?

Is it a little bit of both?

How would you describe it to someone who hasn't seen it?

- I really don't know how to answer that.

I thought that the film showed from the minute what we were doing when we were leaving to us going there in different sections on the way back and then coming back, I thought it covered everything.

It showed the emotion of some of the runners.

It showed, you know, some good interviews with people that went, some good patient interviews, some parents of patients interviews.

And I think it showed... I think it really depicted what the event was all about really and all the emotions that you mentioned.

- Yeah, and it's really, just from my experience being, you know, kind of a first-time experience, it's like, it's very much a rollercoaster of emotions.

You know, you see the hospital and it's a little heavy, you know, of course just being there, but you leave and you come outside and you see hundreds of people, if not thousands, out there cheering for you and supporting you.

And so you're riding this high, and then the camaraderie with all the other runners is just, it's incredible.

You know, I mean, everybody gets a little slap-happy at 3:00 AM getting gas, you know, you're goofing in the parking lot and all this kind of stuff.

So there's a lot of different emotions, and I think as Mike said, it kind of, the film speaks to that and shows that too.

- Mike, when you and your friends started coming up with this idea, how did you decide who you were gonna interview, and tell us about who you interviewed?

- Well, you know, that was pretty much left up to Mike Rundle and the three co-people that did it.

You know, Molly, Sarah, and Amy, they told Mike who they thought were good people to interview.

He interviewed a couple of parents and some people who were on the board and a couple of patients and some people in Memphis.

And, you know, they all played a different part in the event.

And I think that those interviews really help show the total event with their interviews.

- Did you have any interview that stood out and kind of put a dent in your heart?

- Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think one that comes to mind, we were talking with a runner who also happened to be a patient, and after we had gotten back to Peoria, we'd gotten into the telethon and everybody was kind of, you know, everything was slowing down and he was getting ready to head out.

And I caught him as he was leaving the parking lot.

And, you know, he expressed that, you know, the run is a great place to heal yourself as well as help others.

And, you know, he had obviously had a firsthand experience with St.

Jude with his family, and, you know, that one really hit me filming that just because, you know, after going through the whole thing and coming out and then having this wrap up and having a moment to think, it was just, it was really impactful for me to be able to talk to him there.

So... - Sure.

I know you've shown this twice to a select few people, but what do you think the future is for this?

What would you like it to be?

I know there's a ton of red tape when it comes to making and distributing these things, but what would you like to see ideally?

- You know, I think we all have similar ideas.

I think, you know, the more people that you can tell the story about basically gets them interested in St.

Jude.

Maybe not the run, but maybe there are other people that think about the same type of thing.

You know, we're the only one in the country that does this.

And, you know, it wouldn't be bad if you had people running to Dallas or to Fort Lauderdale or to Boston or something with the communities sort of like we do.

And that would raise a lot of money for a great cause.

- Yeah.

How lucky are we to have St.

Jude in our community?

A community the size of Peoria.

- Yeah, we're more than lucky.

We're just, it's beyond belief, you know, and especially to have the ALSAC employees here raising the money and keeping awareness out, you know, and the care of Peoria, we know now is a medical community.

And so to be able to pass the word to St.

Jude and to have the doctors here that see kids, you know, be able to refer them to Memphis and get the quality care at the number one children's research hospital in the country is a big deal.

- Yeah.

Mike Rundle, I know in your experience, you've shot a lot of different things, a lot of corporate videos and things like this.

How was this different than some of the work you've done before?

- I mean, how much time you got?

- Plenty.

(group laughing) - No, it was, you know, as I mentioned too, the logistics from that initial meeting to when we left, it was just, you know, figuring out, you know, okay, how am I gonna get the drone pilots down to Memphis?

You know, how can I figure out where we need to be, when we need to be there, and for how long on the run?

I mean, the seven-hour or so drive down, it was pretty much just me on my laptop just trying to sketch everything out and figure out where we needed to be and all this kind of stuff.

And, you know, so the storytelling is something that I really enjoy doing.

Did a little bit of journalism in college and after college.

And that piece has always been really, really fun to me, quite honestly.

And to be able to tell a story like this one that has had such an impact on the Peoria community and on so many lives all over the world and all over the country, you know, I feel really lucky to be able to do this.

And it's just been a labor of love, and it came together really, really nicely.

- You can do documentaries a lot of different ways.

Some have a narrator, some don't, some just let all the interviewers tell the story.

And that's what you did for this.

Was that a conscious thing?

Like, I want the people themselves to be able to tell this story?

- Yeah, no, absolutely.

You know, I mean, the folks that we were talking to were the people that were experiencing it.

So, you know, that was the perspectives that we wanted to get, are the folks like Mike and Sarah who have been involved for so long, you know, and it was just really, really awesome to be able to work with all the folks on the run.

And one of the reviews that we got from the first night was that there was an abundance of silence in the film a lot.

And, you know, we don't rely on too many sound effects or music tracks or anything to fill it because the run really is a lot of chaos and then it's a lot of quiet.

And so it's just one of those pieces that, you know, just really pushes it to this is an authentic experience, and I just wanted to show that as best we could, so... - Mike, the last time we talked on air was your exit interview after your second retirement.

- Yeah.

- You know, of course, people remember you as Peoria County Sheriff, Washington police chief, but I think even more people are gonna remember you for what you've done here, and now it's immortalized on film.

What's it feel like?

- It's sort of crazy because for the most part they kept me out of it.

You know, they did the talking, and as a matter of fact, the week before we showed it the first time, which was gonna be all hectic, and I was already getting nervous, my wife found a golf trip for me to go on and told me to go away for a week.

And I got home the day before they showed it, and I was, you know, I was just blown away.

We'd seen parts of it before, but when you put it all together and you have the opening and you have the credits and the things that Mike and Lawrence and his team did, I think, you know, it shows all the aspects of the run.

You know, you don't go four days and you're not sad and you're not all tired.

We have some fun too.

You gotta have some fun.

You want people to come back, you want people to continue to raise the money.

And that was really captured all aspects of it, I think was really captured well in the documentary of the run.

- Yeah, you have a few teary eyes in the audience on those showings?

- Yeah, I think there were.

- (laughs) A few hundred.

They're Kleenex boxes dispersed throughout the theater, so yeah.

(laughs) - Yeah, it's pretty cool.

- Yeah, myself included.

- Yeah, sometimes it takes something like that to really teach people what it is that not only the run does, but what St.

Jude does for our kids.

And I know as a St.

Jude parent, I'm eternally grateful for everything that you guys do and, you know, will continue to do.

Can you tell us, Mike, a little bit more about all the money that you raise, what it goes towards and who it helps?

- Sure.

You know, St.

Jude's is primarily a research hospital, 66 acres.

You know, when we went in 1982, there was about 400 employees and a seven-story building with a parking lot.

Now it's 66 acres, 5,000 employees, but they still only have about 120 beds or so.

So it's mostly the research that they share freely with anybody in the world that wants it.

If a doctor calls and has a patient and they have a protocol that's open, it's free.

And that, you know, the travel, the food, and the care is all free to the people that have the kids that go there.

And, you know, I think that that's probably one of the big things that keeps most of us involved.

I think if they ever change the model or something, some of us would be a little different.

But I think, you know, those aspects have really made it continue to grow and continue, I think, to get people involved because, you know, there's no shortage of kids with cancer, and there's no shortage of kids with tough cancer.

And those are the ones that St.

Jude takes.

They take the tough ones.

And to see the success rate for overall cancer go from 8% to 75% in my time is unbelievable.

So we know the money's going the right place.

- Yeah, I was gonna say, your website has some really amazing statistics on it because with some of these, you know, health issues, we see telethons, we raise money, we may not see a lot of progress, but this especially, you know, over the last 45 years, significant progress.

- I think the best thing that sticks out to me there is our very first time that we went, and I went on a tour, and it was by a guy named Dr.

Gary Dahl.

He's at Stanford now in California, and he's retired and stuff.

But I asked him, I said, "How long will it be before a patient or a former patient will be okay enough to go on the run back?"

And he said, "Yeah, you'll never ever see that in your lifetime."

But it's been 25 years now that we've had patients, former patients running.

We had eight former patients run this year.

- Wow.

- And so that shows you that it's not just money that's being used to make a bunch of people rich.

It's a charity that knows what they're doing, and they're spending their money wisely to find cures for childhood cancer.

- Well, again, we hope once you get all the red tape taken care of and i's dotted and t's crossed that you can make this widely available to people.

Is there, you have a website or a Facebook page now where people can go and find out at least more information about it?

- Yeah, stjuderuns.org.

It's on there now.

The film's not on there now, but it tells all about it.

And we're hoping to show it again sometime soon at the museum.

And so it should be open to the public then.

We hope everybody comes out, would like to see it filled up again.

It'll be very cool.

- You may have people clamoring for a part two.

- Hey, we got enough footage to make this a five-part series right now.

- I bet you do.

I bet you do.

I bet you got some good outtakes too.

- Yeah, absolutely, so... - All right, gentlemen, well, congratulations on this.

- Thank you.

- It's really a neat thing that you've done, and we look forward to seeing the finished product.

- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.

- All right, well, if you wanna find out more about St.

Jude, they gave you the website there.

Also, you can check out this interview again, if you didn't see the whole thing or you wanna share it with friends or family, just go to our website, wtvp.org, click on local shows, and you can always catch up with us on social media.

We are on Facebook and Instagram.

Thanks for joining us tonight.

Have a good one.

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