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D.J. Uses Mic, Bike To Fight MS

It was a simple phone call and a simple request.

“I’m signing up for the Walk MS this year. Why don’t you make a donation?”

Jimmy Lehn, Mohegan Ride
Jimmy Lehn, left, often talks about the fight against MS and the Bike MS: Mohegan Sun Ride, presented by Cardio Express, during the WCTY 97.7 morning show with co-host Shelly Martinez.
Kathy Bingen expected her big brother, Jimmy Lehn, to respond with a $25 contribution. Maybe even $50. She did not expect to find herself flown 1,000 miles — from Slinger, Wis., to Connecticut — to be the centerpiece of a radio campaign and a dynamic fundraising team made up of strangers who welcomed her as family.

“I was just trying to get him to donate,” Bingen says. “It was just so much more than I had ever expected. Jimmy made me feel very special that year.”

Bingen, who has lived with multiple sclerosis since 1990, is well-acquainted with her brother’s tendency to go above and beyond. So it is not surprising how he responded a few years later when she casually mentioned, “You know they have a Bike MS Ride in Connecticut, too.”

That's how Jimmy Lehn — or “Jimmy “Lane” as he’s known to listeners of the WCTY morning show — came to be standing in his local bike shop, looking around at the array of choices and feeling very confused.

Two days closer
to a world free of MS

The two-day Bike MS: Mohegan Sun Ride 2008 Presented by Cardio Express will start and finish at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn., Saturday, Sept. 27 and Sunday, Sept. 28. The event includes a new overnight location, Camp Hazen in Chester, Conn., where cyclists will be met with meals, games and a lakeside beer- and wine-tasting event.

Camp Hazen is surrounded by a beautiful lake, open fields and groomed pathways through the woods, with cabins well placed around the perimeter. The cabins are well-maintained and very clean, some with their own interior bathroom amenities.

Participants can opt to complete a 25-, 50-, or 75-mile route each day. Routes wind through southeastern Connecticut’s breathtaking shoreline and countryside. A finish line celebration at Mohegan Sun will feature food, music and massage therapy.

Over the past 13 years, more than 1,600 cyclists have pedaled more than 200,000 miles to raise about $850,000 to support local chapter programs and services and scientific research to find a cure for multiple sclerosis.

The registration fee is $80. There is also a $300 fundraising minimum per rider. All meals and the overnight stay are included.

For more information or to register,  visit
http://www.ctfightsms.org/, or tune to KISS 95.7 FM, 97.7 WCTY Country Favorites or News Channel 8/MyTV9. To volunteer or register, please contact the Connecticut Chapter at 1.800.FIGHT MS.

“I had no idea what to buy … but eventually I ended up buying a mountain bike,” says Lehn. “I found out later it was completely the wrong kind of bike for the ride.”

That was in 2002. These days Lehn has all the right gear — including a Fuji Roubaix road bike — and is an avid year-round cyclist. The radio station where he’s been on-air for the past nine years, WTCY 97.7 out of Norwich, Conn., is once again a media sponsor for the two-day Bike MS: Mohegan Sun Ride 2008, presented by Cardio Express. The ride takes place Saturday, Sept. 27, and Sunday, Sept. 28, starting and finishing at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.

More than 400,000 people in the United States live with multiple sclerosis, 6,000 of those in Connecticut. MS is a chronic and often disabling disease of the central nervous system. There currently is no cure. Symptoms can include, among other things, numbness in the limbs, difficulties with vision and speech, stiffness and, in some more severe cases, total paralysis. The progress, severity and specific symptoms of MS in any one person cannot be predicted.

For Bingen, the symptoms of multiple sclerosis began about 18 years ago with numbness in her left arm. At first she thought it was carpal tunnel syndrome, but her physician recognized this as a possible sign of MS. Bingen considers herself one of the lucky few for receiving a diagnosis so quickly. The often baffling symptoms of MS mean that many people live for years before being diagnosed.

Bingen, who is married with two children — Alexa, 12, and Rick, 15 — has what’s known as relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. This means she can have long periods of relatively mild symptoms, punctuated by significant relapses.

Lehn’s devotion to helping find a cure for multiple sclerosis has led him down his own path in life. His involvement in the MS ride unlocked a passion for the sport, and Lehn is now a year-round cyclist who regularly goes for 60- to 100-mile rides and is a member of the Pequot Cyclists club based in Eastern Connecticut.

“It’s somewhat ironic, the fact that what I’ve done because of my sister’s MS, riding a lot like I do now, has actually made me a healthier person,” he says. “But for her, it’s just living day to day.”

To learn more about multiple sclerosis, its effects, and programs and services offered by the chapter to those living with the disease, please e-mail programs@ctfightsMS.org or go to http://www.ctfightsms.org/.

NOTE TO MEDIA
For More Information
Contact Lisa Cook
Communications Specialist
Phone: 860.714.2300, ext. 249
lcook@ctfightsMS.org

 

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