Siloam Springs teen to have 'ride of a lifetime'

VanSandt to embark on the Cherokee Nation’s 2016 Remember the Removal Bike Ride.

Glendon VanSandt, 16, of Siloam Springs, shows the family tree researchers completed for the Cherokee Nation's Remember the Removal Riders.
Glendon VanSandt, 16, of Siloam Springs, shows the family tree researchers completed for the Cherokee Nation's Remember the Removal Riders.

Glendon VanSandt will set off on the journey of a lifetime Tuesday.

The 16-year-old homeschool student from Siloam Springs is one of eight cyclists in the Cherokee Nation's 2016 Remember the Removal Bike Ride. They will travel 950 miles by bicycle tracing the northern route of the Trail of Tears from the Cherokee homelands in Georgia to Oklahoma, according to a news release from the Cherokee Nation.

After a sendoff Tuesday at the Cherokee Nation headquarters in Tahlequah, Okla., riders will travel by van to New Echota, Ga., to meet up with a group of riders from the Eastern Band of Cherokees. On June 5, they will begin a 19-day journey by bicycle through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, before returning to Tahlequah on June 23.

VanSandt has been training for nearly five months for the trip. In addition to concentrating on physical conditioning and cycling skills, participants also learned about their Cherokee culture and heritage, and took Cherokee language lessons.

Learning about Cherokee history and studying the language has had a deep impact on VanSandt. One fascinating part of his studies has been reading the journal of Daniel Butrick, a missionary who accompanied the Cherokee as they were removed. The journal entries have brought the harsh realities to life for VanSandt. Of the 16,000 Cherokees moved, 4,000 died on the journey, he said.

VanSandt has plenty of experience with cycling. His family owns Cross Country Cyclery in Siloam Springs and he's competed in a number of races. The training has helped him get comfortable with his new bike, provided by the Cherokee Nation, and with going up and down hills quickly. Some of the riders had never ridden before and started training from scratch, he said.

"The people I'm riding with are like family," VanSandt said. "We'll only grow closer the more time we spend together on the ride."

Some of VanSandt's fellow riders are family. As part of the program, VanSandt and the other riders had their genealogy done by researchers. They got the results back and found five of the riders shared a common ancestor, John Downing, who lived in the late 1700s. VanSandt's genealogy stretches to 1690, and documents English settlers who came to America and married Cherokee people in the early 1700s.

Andrea VanSandt, Glendon's mother, said she expects the journey to change her son. Traveling along the trail and physically standing in the historic spots will make history even more real to Glendon, she said.

He has been able to share much of what he has already learned with his grandparents, Glen and Sandy VanSandt, who have been excited to find out about their family history. Glendon will also be able to pass the knowledge on to future generations, Andrea said.

She has watched her son learn life skills throughout the training program. For example, Glendon could only miss two weekend practices or be disqualified from the ride, so he had to make choices to say no to some things he wanted to do.

"There's been a lot of great things that have come from this already and he hasn't even left yet," she said.

NW News on 05/31/2016

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