In May, Mryna Kay (Olson) Peterson ’71 and friends organized a gathering for the record books—specifically for Guinness World Records. To bring awareness to the plight of the differently abled, Peterson and Lee Isaacs, her friend and fellow wheelchair user, managed to bring 351 people together in Grand Rapids, Minn., for the longest moving line of wheelchairs on record.
Peterson’s connection with Isaacs goes beyond their wheelchair use. Both of them have four children of similar ages whom they coached together as friends and neighbors for many years, and on June 21, 1995, both were involved in separate accidents a half mile apart that left them wheelchair-bound for life.
“Between the two of us,” Peterson says, “we’ve had more than 40 surgeries. I’ve had 19, he’s had 23, and I’m scheduled for two more. It hasn’t been an easy road.”
Part of what’s made the journey difficult are the barriers to navigating outside the home. Limited public transportation, a lack of accessibility getting into and through buildings, sidewalks without cutaways for curbs, and a lack of accessible trails and recreation paths make life in a wheelchair harder than it could be, even in supportive Grand Rapids. This is why Peterson wanted to stage the record-setting event: to draw attention to what life is like for the differently abled.
Peterson’s event, called MyrnaLee Mania, had 100 manual wheelchairs on hand for able-bodied people who wanted to participate, but what struck Peterson was the sheer number of actual wheelchair users—251—who showed up. “The reason that was so impacting is that we don’t see them out anywhere,” Peterson says. “Only 25 or 30 of them were from the Twin Cities, Duluth, or out west—the rest were pretty local, but we never see them.”
That lack of visibility and the lack of accessibility it implies is why Peterson and others have started a steering committee of wheelchair users, local politicians, city workers and engineers, and other prominent people in Itasca County. “A lot of people in chairs don’t have a voice or even the opportunity to have a voice, so we’re speaking for a lot of people,” Peterson says. “Our focus is that these improvements in accessibility will benefit our entire communities of all ages, abilities, and concerns, not just those of us in wheelchairs.”
As for the world record, Peterson is still awaiting the official verdict—the verification process takes several months—but she’s confident they pulled it off.