Ride for Mike to honor Metea teacher's memory

The pond at Metea Valley High School where teacher Mike Wegrzyn used to take his science students for classes now bears his name.

His family was honored with a plaque at a football game last fall.

And now the memory of Wegrzyn, who died unexpectedly in June 2014 at age 32, will be honored once more with a fundraising bike ride co-workers are planning for Saturday, May 2.

The first Ride for Mike event, beginning with registration at 7:30 a.m. at Metea, will raise money for an education fund for Wegrzyn's twin daughters, Aubren and Elle, who were less than a year old when he died.

The event combines Wegrzyn's passions of environmentalism and bicycling, said his Metea teaching co-workers Alena Edwards and Jeff Schmela.

Schmela, who lives in Wheaton, used to ride bikes to Metea together with Wegrzyn, who lived in Winfield. It was about a 13-mile ride to the Aurora school, but that was nothing compared with one extreme bicycling event Schmela said he roped Wegrzyn into.

"He had done triathlons for several years then I talked him into doing a 24-hour race one time," Schmela said. "It's something not a lot of people have done, to ride your bike for 24 hours."

Participants in Ride for Mike won't be asked to ride all day, but they will be given the option of courses that are about 7, 15 and 18 miles along the Prairie Path and the Fox River Trail. The littlest of kids at what's billed as a family event can circle Metea's track in the "Trike for Mike" on tricycles, Big-Wheels or bikes with training wheels, Edwards said.

Participants who pay $30 for adult registration or $10 for kids will be given a T-shirt and a reusable water bottle to cut down on trash, a move Wegrzyn would have appreciated. Online registration is available at http://www.active.com/aurora-il/cycling/ride-for-mike-2015.

"Mike was really into helping the environment," Edwards said. "By riding his bike, not only was he exercising, but he was not burning fuel."

Co-workers originally wanted to plan the event around Wegrzyn's birthday to celebrate his life. But he was born in the winter, Edwards said, not ideal biking season. So the May 2 event comes about a month before the anniversary of his death.

"Mike was such a fun, outgoing person that we were thinking he wouldn't always want us to be sad; he would want us to be happy and to do something positive," Edwards said.

The fundraiser will help Metea continue to keep Wegrzyn in its thoughts, Principal Darrell Echols said.

"We've been doing some things to make sure his memory stays fresh here," Echols said. "We just want the family to feel that he's gone but not forgotten."

Metea mourns loss of science teacher with passion for learning