Jo-Anne Stead, pictured at her desk at the Chronicle Journal, 1980. (Supplied: Jo-Anne Stead)
It was 40 years ago today that Canadians learned Terry Fox would be ending his Marathon of Hope, after stopping just outside Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Former Chronicle-Journal reporter Jo-Anne Stead was at that news conference at the Cancer Centre at the former Port Arthur General Hospital and says she remembers it vividly.
She says nobody knew that Fox’s cancer had returned, only that he had stopped his run in Shuniah and had developed a cough. Lying in a hospital bed at the Cancer Centre with his parents holding his hands, Fox announced that the disease had spread to his lungs.
Stead believes it was the biggest news of the day because the country was so invested in his run.
‘People were really kind of rooting for him, and all along northwestern Ontario people would try to make it out to see him on his marathon. So it was a big shock, I think,” she recalls.
“Everybody was kind of rooting for him, and so when he announced that the cancer had returned, it was sort of a collective sort of mourning for the fact that he had to stop and that he had the cancer return,” Stead adds
Stead says she still takes part in the annual Terry Fox Run, adding it brings back memories of a Canadian hero.
