Planning

No sidewalks, no Starbucks — just dedicated walkers in tiny Colorado town

By Ellen Creager
(Public Access Journalism)

Only 2,000 people live in Wray, Colo., but 500 of them were interested in “Wray Walks the World.”

Within a month after the program started three years ago, the citizens of the tiny plains farming town three hours east of Denver had walked enough miles to circle the globe, and moved on to walking to the moon.

They did it without fancy paths, perfect sidewalks or a Starbucks down the street.

“Actually, we have horrible, horrible sidewalks. They’re cracked and broken, and sometimes they just end,” says Revae Parker, the city community services director who ran the program to bring fitness to the rural community with a grant from the federal government and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“People walked out past the high school on an old highway, Sunset Lane. Or they walked out on Blake Street, where there’s not much traffic,” she says. “People would go early in the morning, when it wasn’t very busy.”

Although Colorado has the lowest overweight and obesity rates in the country, many people in Wray didn’t go out of their way to eat well and exercise before the program started.

“It’s the old way,” Parker says. “People smoke a lot. There’s lots of alcohol.” Even though there isn’t a single fast-food joint anywhere near Wray except Subway, “people eat a lot of mashed potatoes and big meals,” she says.

Most families are cattle ranchers or farmers, growing corn, wheat, potatoes or sunflowers.

“The farmers think they are out getting exercise all day, but they’re not. They’re sitting in their tractors with the air conditioning and music,” Parker says.

Among the activities Wray offered to get its citizens moving were $8 health assessments, free pedometers, a family track meet, free personal training, use of the Wray Rehabilitation and Activities Center track (17 laps equals one mile), free health speakers from Denver, and a popular team walking and weight-loss competition with Yuma, Colo., 30 miles up the road.

What did they learn? That even people in tiny towns feel they have “no time” to exercise. That people who exercised in groups were more successful and had more fun. That the most likely participants were middle-aged women. That prizes were good motivators. And that the social aspect of the program was very, very important.

“Here, there isn’t a lot to do. We don’t have the arts. We don’t have anything. We’re really out in the middle of nowhere,” says Parker. “A lot of times, people get together to walk for awhile, then go for coffee, and that’s their day.”

The grants ended in May, and the project will wind down. No more prizes for walking. But Parker is counting on citizens of the tiny town that hugs the border with Kansas and Nebraska to keep on moving.

“We have a lot of people here who have lost a lot of weight and who are still exercising,” she says, hope in her voice. “We’ve shown people it can be enjoyable.”
———
Ellen Creager is a health and fitness writer for the Detroit Free Press.
———

(c) 2003, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.