Motorcycle club hosts ride for child with cancer

Published 12:16 pm Thursday, September 26, 2013

By STEPHANIE BRUMFIELD / Staff Writer

MONTEVALLO – The Iron Order Motorcycle Club of Shelby County is sponsoring a motorcycle ride Oct. 5 to raise money for a seven-year-old Montevallo Elementary student with cancer.

John Oliver Tetloff was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a neuroendocrine tumor that develops on nerve tissues throughout the body, on May 6. He has since undergone several rounds of chemotherapy and other treatments.

Dubbed Ollie’s Ride to Survive, the motorcycle ride costs $25 per rider and $5 per passenger, with registration beginning at 8 a.m. at Montevallo Elementary School. Riders will leave at 9:30 a.m. and ride to Beeswax Park, stopping for a brief moment of silence at the Alabama National Cemetery, and finish at Orr Park by noon.

Meanwhile, event organizer Valerie Brown said activities for kids, silent auction items, live music and donation jars would be set up at Orr Park for non-riders looking to participate in the fundraiser. Raffle tickets will be available for door prizes as well as a 50/50 raffle, where the raffle winner will “split the pot” with the Tetloff family.

Raffle and silent auction winners will be announced at 12:30 p.m.

Event partners include Victory GMC, who will provide door prizes and set up a booth with candy and balloons, as well as Dollar Bill from 102.5 the Bull, who has donated a guitar autographed by several country singers for auction.

Unofficially partnering with the IOMC is the Montevallo Fire and Rescue department, who will share Orr Park Saturday after the annual Fire Prevention Parade.

“What they’re doing is for a great cause, and our whole theme is about public safety,” said parade organizer and Montevallo firefighter Brandon Broadhead. “Their theme fit right into ours, so we just worked together to make both events happen.”

Broadhead also said John Oliver has been invited to ride with parade grand marshal Dollar Bill in the first fire truck of the parade.