At charity ride, a missing luminary at the finish line
BARNSTABLE - Hospitalized in Boston, US Senator Edward M. Kennedy was missing this year from the finish line at the end of the Best Buddies Challenge ride. But the show went on.
About 875 people took part in the sun-splashed charity bike ride hosted by the Kennedy family, cycling all or part of a 100-mile route from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester to Craigsville Beach in the Hyannis Port section of Barnstable.
The race, which was sponsored in part by The Boston Globe, raised a record $3 million for Best Buddies, a nonprofit founded to help people with intellectual disabilities.
Throughout the afternoon, sweaty, Spandex-clad riders crossed the finish line as music blared and crowds cheered.
"We've got a party going here. That's what he'd want," said Anthony Shriver, Kennedy's nephew, who is founder and chairman of Best Buddies International.
Shriver, who was standing outside in the bright sunlight wearing a red and black Best Buddies cycling jersey, said, "We always come back strong . . . We've got good genes, I guess."
Word of Kennedy's hospitalization after suffering two seizures reached riders by text message and word of mouth throughout the day.
"His presence will be missed," said Chip Collins, a 39-year-old special education teacher from Shrewsbury who has ridden the 100-mile trek the past four years. "I just hope he's OK."
Kennedy in previous years has been a familiar figure at the finish line, which this year was 2 miles from the family's storied compound. He has greeted riders and mingled with the crowds in the annual postride clambake.
"This must have really thrown them for a loop," said Stephanie Dolmat-Connell, 26, of Princeton, who did the ride with her father and brother.
She said she learned of Kennedy's hospitalization when her mother sent her a text message.
"I thought I'd see him at the finish line," she said. "I hope he's OK."
State Senator Mark C. Montigny, a Best Buddies board member who also attended the event, said that he saw Kennedy on Friday and earlier yesterday at the compound and that he was "full of his typical humor and enthusiasm." 