KU, KSU frats run marathon for cancer charity

It took more work than usual to get one of Saturday’s game balls into Memorial Stadium for the Sunflower Showdown.

Members of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta, nicknamed FIJI, at Kansas University and Kansas State University took turns running more than 70 miles along U.S. Highway 24 and passed the ball to one another on the way from the door of the FIJI house in Manhattan to the chapter house in Lawrence.

The 25 KU and K-State members who made the eight-hour trip Friday did it in honor of fallen fraternity brother Rod Morgan, who died from leukemia in 1974, years before all of them were even born.

“They bind together on the same cause. Isn’t that wonderful? I think cancer touches every family, so you lay aside your rivalry between the two schools and support each other,” said Rod’s mother, Doris Morgan, of Dwight, who attended the game Saturday.

For 33 years, members of the two chapters have participated in the FIJI Run for Leukemia to raise money to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Rod Morgan, a K-State veterinary medicine student, died when he was 21, and the two chapters began partnering together to raise money for the society just before he died.

Dan Krumme, a Kansas University freshman from Shawnee, runs a stretch of U.S. High-way 24 between Perry and Lawrence. Krumme, a member of Phi Gamma Delta, was part of a crew of KU and K-State fraternity brothers that ran with a football in arm from Manhattan to Lawrence on Friday to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The fraternity members seek donations throughout the fall. In 33 years, the chapters have raised more than $500,000 to benefit research of blood-related diseases, said Megan Clemens, a campaign manager for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

This year, the two chapters raised more than $20,000 through door-to-door and online donations. Fraternity members and the Morgan family presented a check reflecting this year’s efforts to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society on Saturday on Kivisto Field at Memorial Stadium.

During Friday’s run to Lawrence, the chapter members took turns running certain distances and throwing the football to one another, while others drove alongside.

“I thought it was a fun experience. It was a good way to meet K-State FIJIs,” said Grant Kollman, a KU FIJI pledge and freshman from Stockton.

Kollman estimated he ran between 4 and 5 miles.

Members of Rod Morgan’s family joined his mother at the game Saturday, including his father, Keith, his brother, Mitch, and his sister, Bonnie Johnson.

“(The fraternity members) do it in memory of our son, which is very heartwarming, but they are doing it for everyone else, too,” Doris Morgan said.