Photo by Michael Gallacher of the Missoulian 

What do you do when your friend is really sick and 500 miles away and you're only in third grade?

If you're a classmate of Target Range School student Logan Smith, you run to see him. Virtually.

The 23 members of Melodee Burreson's third-grade class finished a cumulative 500-mile run Friday afternoon - the distance

from Missoula to Seattle, where Smith is undergoing therapy for kidney cancer. Every student has put in at least a lap a day

since April 7 on Target Range's quarter-mile track.


“It's not like he can just wake up and say, ‘I don't want to have cancer today,' ” said friend and flag football teammate Max Triepke.

“So we're running every day,” added teammate Matthew Carlson. “Doesn't matter if it's raining or hailing, we're showing Logan

that we appreciate him and we miss him.”

A big teddy bear sits in Logan's desk. It wears a Target Range T-shirt covered with numeric equations. The shirt usually goes to

Burreson's top mathematician of the week. Since Logan got sick, the kids decided he'd keep the honor.

“He did harder math than we did,” classmate Anna Mackey said as she blew up balloons for the final run celebration. “He didn't

need to use paper, and he beat everyone in ‘Around the World' (a math game).”

Logan's odyssey started just before Thanksgiving last year, when he went to the doctor for a tummy ache and didn't come back

to school. Burreson said he was flown to Seattle the next day, and surgeons had to remove an 8 1/2-pound tumor from his right

kidney, along with part of his liver and lymph nodes.

He returned to Missoula just before Christmas, and was with his classmates again in January.

“Other than being a little tired, our old Logan was back,” Burreson said. “But then he went in for a wellness checkup in March

and didn't come back. He was back in Seattle.”

Over spring break, the kids and parents pondered with Burreson about what they could do. Everybody wanted to go visit him, but

500 miles is beyond field trip range. So they decided to do it virtually.

“If he knew we were trying to get there, we hoped that would put a little spark back in him,” Burreson said.

The students pledged to run at least a lap a day and tally their totals on a big chart in the Target Range hallway. Some logged in

during their recess or lunch break. Others came after school and piled on extra miles. On a couple of days, Tara Barba's sixth-grade

class joined in. Logan's brother, Wyatt, is in that room, although he and middle brother Hayden are frequently in Seattle with the family.

“It's brought us together as a school,” Barba said. “This whole family has affected us, and he's one of those special, cool kids. A

common goal is a good thing.”

As the laps stacked up, the students kept track of their total distance on a big map in the hallway. They got a letter from Spokane

Mayor Mary Verner congratulating them on that waypoint, and another from Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels when they approached his

city. Last week, Missoula Mayor John Engen and University of Montana football coach Bobby Hauck came out to cheer them on as

they approached the virtual finish line.

Burreson said in 30 years of teaching, she thought she was prepared to handle most any classroom situation. But Logan's challenge

and his classmates' response was something never covered in handbooks or manuals. She's kept in close touch with parents about

how the children react to updates on Logan's condition. And she provided time for students to work out their feelings through talking,

artwork and visits with counselors as needed.

“ ‘What can we do?' Those were the first words out of their mouths when they heard about Logan,” Burreson said. “They're my class of

angels. They care for their classmates in such an unselfish manner.”

Reporter Rob Chaney can be reached at 523-5382 or at rchaney@missoulian.com