UMass Boston alumni will compete in the Boston Marathon April 21 to raise money for the Krystle Campbell Scholarship Fund.
The scholarship was established in honor of Krystle Campbell, a UMass Boston student who was killed in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Since its founding, the scholarship has raised more than $1 million to empower women in business. Applications are open to students at the college of management.
Six runners — Shahnawaz Anwar, Ananta Chakravartula, Paul Dyson, Katie Gauthier, Rhonda Hodge and Natalia Rosero, all of whom are UMass Boston alumni — will compete on the team this year.
“A lot of folks run Boston for various charities, and they’re all great, but this charity is obviously particularly important to me,” Dyson said. In addition to being UMass Boston faculty and alumnus, Dyson was a member of the Massachusetts National Guard in 2013. His unit was activated as part of the response to the bombing.
Each runner committed to raise a minimum of $6,500 for the scholarship fund to get a bib. The team has raised just over $13,500 so far this year. They collect donations via GiveCampus.
Campbell was among three who died April 15, 2013, when terrorists detonated two improvised explosive devices made from pressure cookers at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, near Copley Square on Boylston Street. Also killed was 8-year-old Martin Richard and Boston University student Lingzi Lu. More than 500 others were injured in the bombing, according to the FBI.
The attack, which was the largest on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, sparked a dayslong manhunt in which the two terrorists killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier and engaged in a firefight that killed Boston Police Department Sgt. Dennis Simmonds.
Dyson said the runners primarily train independently, but occasionally run together for motivation. They plan to do so on campus Saturday for their final long run before the marathon. “Some of the members of the team really do feel like family at this point. We do what we can to get together,” he said.
“We all train a little bit differently, but … you can train three to four days a week if you just want to finish a marathon in relative comfort,” Dyson said. “It’s kind of cool being a charity runner, because nobody actually expects you to win.”
In addition to raising money, charity running lets more people compete in the otherwise exclusive marathon. “Because the Boston Marathon is particularly prestigious among runners, a lot of people want to run it,” Dyson said. “You can qualify — so if you run really fast in another marathon, you can get an invitation for Boston. For mortals like myself, I can’t run that fast, so the other way to do it is through charity.”
One of the terrorists responsible for the bombing died of injuries sustained while fleeing. The other was found guilty in 2015 on 30 charges and sentenced to death. PBS reports that he is one of just three federal death row inmates who former President Joe Biden excluded when he commuted 37 death sentences before leaving office.
According to The Boston Globe, the surviving attacker remains on death row at a federal supermax prison in Colorado while his attorneys argue he did not receive a fair trial. The 1st U.S. Court of Appeals had overturned the death sentence in 2020, before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that ruling in 2022. Last year, a three-judge panel from the 1st Circuit sent the case back to a trial court judge to investigate potential juror bias.
Said Dyson, “We’re never going to get the bombing victims back, but we can carry on in their name.”
