Inaugural Fittest Loser Champion Award presented in memory of Gerry Alger
The Fittest Loser finale is a time to applaud participants achieving their fitness goals. However, this year's event began with a different kind of celebration. It began with the remembrance and celebration of a life well lived.
The inaugural Fittest Loser Champion Award was presented to Karen Loring, the team captain for Nicoat's At Work Challenge teams. The award was established in memory of Daily Herald and Town Square editor and manager Gerry Alger, whose passion, commitment and support of the Daily Herald's Fittest Loser Challenge and its participants was greatly missed this year.
Alger, one of the original organizers of the competition, passed away in January after a battling pancreatic cancer.
"I was very humbled. I was stunned and I was very honored because right after they had that dedication to [Alger], who was so incredibly involved. It was an honor," said Loring, who organized teams and acted as team captain for Nicoat, a coatings manufacturing company in Itasca.
Alger was a key player in the Fittest Loser Challenge. She was the first employee of the Daily Herald to participate in the challenge and she chronicled her journey as she dropped 36 pounds in 12 weeks in 2011. She helped organize and arrange coverage of the event thereafter, attending weekly boot camp sessions, growing close to many of the contestants, often counseling them through the process. She continued to work with her trainer from Push Fitness in the years following her official participation in the 2011 Fittest Loser Challenge.
Alger's husband, Mel Alger, and daughter, Melanie Andreani, spoke about Alger's enthusiasm for the program and how her commitment to it changed their lives as well, as she roped them into working out with her and her trainer.
M. Eileen Brown, vice president and director of strategic marketing and innovation for the Daily Herald, presented the award, which she said would go each year to the team caption who demonstrates Alger's "devotion, her caring, her enthusiasm and her giving nature."
Loring fits the definition of the Fitness Loser Champion Award, Brown said. Loring believes that wellness is key to keeping morale up within the company.
"If we take care of ourselves we're going to live longer, we're going to have better quality of life and we're going to get along better because our attitudes are going to be different," Loring said.
Loring took it upon herself to organize Nicoat's teams in order to help those within the company who wanted to get healthy, lose weight and have better eating habits. She wanted to bring them all together to achieve their wellness goals.
"When people participate as teams, they really get along better," said Loring. "We work as teams. I mean, we go out and we run together and we participate in all of these fun activities of wellness. We just create a much better attitude at work.
"I wanted to just say thank you and I can't believe that this is happening because she [Alger] was such a part of this team and it was a great loss to them. It was really humbling," Loring said.