WSU News Archive

By Julie Titone, College of Education

PULLMAN, Wash. - Sunni Bleibtrey's mother died of breast cancer last spring. In a sad twist of fate, her death came one month after the Washington State University student helped organize a Mom's Weekend fun run that benefited breast cancer research.

 

"My mom was diagnosed three weeks after we put on our event,” said Bleibtrey, a senior from Victor, Mont. "It was a very fast and aggressive cancer and she passed away just a week later, on May 5.”

 

The loss of Karen Bleibtrey, a 58-year-old teacher, hit her family hard. Sunni Bleibtrey found it tough coming back to Pullman in the fall. But with the support of friends and faculty, she has thrown herself into work and activities.

 

She is president of the Sport Management Club and is helping organize its 2012 "Moms on the Run,” scheduled for April 14. The registration deadline is Tuesday, April 10.

 

Last year's run resulted from an assignment in the course Theory and Application in Sports Event Management, taught by Assistant Professor John Wong. Bleibtrey and four classmates decided to put on a 5K run.

 

"We were challenged to produce a charitable event having no starting funds. We had to find sponsors, advertise throughout the community and campus, and sign up 25 volunteers,” said Bleibtrey, who was the club's director of fundraising last year. "It was extremely successful. We had 99 participants and raised $2,204.”

 

Club members are hoping for 150 runners and walkers this year. Men and women are welcome to participate. Most of the proceeds will be donated to Every Woman Can, a charitable arm of Spokane's Inland Imaging.

 

Bleibtrey, 22, enjoyed sports - especially basketball and soccer - as a youngster. After graduating from Montana's Corvallis High School and arriving at WSU, she discovered she could study sport management. Students in that major are required to specialize in either communications or business; Bleibtrey decided to minor in both fields.

 

She's in her second year as a student assistant in the WSU Athletic Communications office, where her duties include producing videos of athletes, coaches and events and posting them on http://wsucougars.com. For the last two and a half years, she has worked at the Old Navy store in Moscow, Idaho. She has lined up an internship for this summer at the Missoula YMCA.

 

Bleibtrey's dad, Jim, and her siblings, Chase and Vanessa, will attend the May 5 commencement in Pullman. She'll be thinking of her mom and of the sport management faculty who helped her through her loss.

 

"Dr. Wong and Dr. (Michelle) Richardson especially have been amazing mentors for me,” she said. "I wouldn't have made it through this year without them.”

 

Another source of support was her childhood friend and WSU roommate, Casey Burnette.

 

"Casey lost her mom in a similar situation to mine. She found out her mom had leukemia and then two weeks later she passed away in 2009,” Bleibtrey said.

 

Burnette, a design major, created her first fashion line for the upcoming WSU Mom's Weekend Fashion Show in memory of her mother, Elizabeth Weis.

 

Contacts:
Sunni Bleibtrey, 406-381-2630, sunni.bleibtrey@email.wsu.edu
Julie Titone, WSU College of Education, 509-335-6850, jtitone@wsu.edu

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