People

By Guy D. Garcia

When Terry Fox, who lost a leg to cancer, started a 1980 run across Canada to raise money for research, no one was more profoundly affected than Steve Fonyo, a boy from Vernon, B.C., who had also lost a leg to the disease. Fox raised more than $20 million before the spreading cancer ended his run; he died in 1981. But his spirit lived, as 14 months ago in St. John's, Nfld., Fonyo dipped his toe into the Atlantic and embarked on his own "journey for lives." Last week, after grinding down 4,924 miles, 17 pairs of running shoes and six artificial legs, Fonyo hobbled onto a red carpet at a Vancouver Island beach, poured a jigger of Atlantic water into the Pacific and shouted, "Yahoo, I've done it!" The run (actually he plants his artificial leg then swings his good leg in a hopping double step) has already raised nearly $10 million. At a rally early last week, Fonyo, 19, talked about when he was twelve and learned of his illness: "I cried at night and I cried in the day. But I didn't give up. Don't you give up. All you've got to do is keep going, keep plugging away." Even a continent can be conquered.