(EDITOR’S NOTE: Following is a column that made its first appearance in last year’s Ogden Newspapers 20K Race Tab. We present it again here, with several updates, to set the stage for Saturday’s 30th anniversary event)

We all have calendars hanging on the wall around our house but if you stop and think about it, that’s not really how we chart our passage through time.

The days and numbers on those calendars are all the same size but you and I both know some days are bigger than others.

For example, simply typing the word ‘‘Christmas’’ under the number ‘‘25’’ on December’s calendar falls woefully short of the impact Dec. 25 has on most of our families — not to mention our wallets.

The calendar says March 21 is the first day of spring but does March 21 really feel that much different than March 22?

Opening day of baseball season has always been the first day of spring for me.

The calendar may list Sept. 22 or 23 as the first day of autumn, but it’s the first crack of high school football helmets on a late August night that tells me we’ve officially started that long slow slide toward winter.

As far as I’m concerned, summer starts in Wheeling on the final weekend of May.

Ever since the legendary Bill Rodgers outdueled Frank Shorter and Tom Fleming in the inaugural Wheeling distance race back in 1977, the Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic has become part of the fabric of our community.

Thousands of Ohio Valley residents have matched their wills and skills with the nation’s elite and tens of thousands more of their friends and neighbors have lined the streets and sidewalks of Wheeling to cheer them all on.

Events define our world much more than mere numbers on a sheet of paper. They’re the chocolate chips in our cookies, the decoder ring in our breakfast cereal, the prize in our box of Cracker Jacks.

Following are some of the ‘‘tastier’’ morsels I’ve come across in more than two decades of covering Wheeling’s premier distance race.

Along with most of you, I’ll be back this weekend looking for another treat.

Living the Dream

One of Ricky Moore’s dreams as a young man growing up in Wheeling was to one day compete with the international elite who came to town every May. On a rainy Saturday last spring, Moore not only proved he could compete with the elites.

He proved he could beat them.

Battling a driving rain that produced some of the most difficult conditions ever for the race, Moore broke off the starting line with the lead pack and stayed there throughout.

Kenya’s Julius Kibet eventually would pull away to his second straight Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic championship but Moore, who had dropped back to third midway through the race, never stopped pushing.

He reeled in another Kenyan, 2004 Parkersburg Half-Marathon champ Isaac Arusei coming out of Tunnel Green to take over second place and never looked back.

With the crowd surrounding the finish line roaring, Ricky finished second in a time of 1:04:18.

That was the highest finish ever for a local product and the best in more than two decades by any American runner.

Arusei was third, nearly 40 seconds behind Moore, with Morocco’s Mohammed Ar-Ar coming in fourth at 1:05:03.

That second-place finish helped jump start Ricky’s pro career.

Later in the year, he also finished second at the Greater Clarksburg 10K and a strong showing in the Parkersburg Half-Marathon earned him the Ogden Grand Prix title, presented annually to the runner with the lowest combined times in the Wheeling and Parkersburg races.

He was signed to an endorsement contract by Team Saucony and has represented the global supplier of athletic footwear and apparel at races across the United States.

Already this year, Ricky has run in the Houston Half-Marathon, the Azalea Trail 10K in Mobile, Ala. and posted a second-place finish in the International 10K at the 112th Penn Relays in Philadelphia.

Earlier this month, he was one of 31 elite runners invited to compete in the Lilac Bloomsday 12K Run at Spokane, Wash.

Dreams can come true on the streets of Wheeling.

Just ask Ricky Moore.

Boston Billy

There’s little doubt Bill Rodgers’ participation and support in the infancy of the Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic played a major role in putting Wheeling on the international road racing map.

‘‘Boston Billy’’ couldn’t make it back for this year’s 30th anniversary event but as the event approaches middle age, his name is all over the record books

Then at the peak of his racing form, Rodgers won three of the first five races from 1977-1981. A decade later, he reeled off four straight masters championships from 1991-94.

With the years finally beginning to take their toll, Rodgers only ran in the 5K events here the past few springs but remained a formidable competitor at that level.

Rodgers is recognized as the face of road running on every continent from here to Antarctica.

Yet for all his success and all his travels, this is only the third time he’s missed the big race in Wheeling since winning that first one back in 1977.

Rodgers remains one of only two men to have won four Boston Marathons (1975, 1978, 1979, 1980) and the three-time Wheeling champion is also the only man ever to win four New York City Marathons

It’s not easy to put Wheeling, Boston and New York City in the same paragraph but Bill Rodgers made it possible.

Just Walk Away

Anybody up for a little Trivial Pursuit?

Name one major American 20K distance race where a course record is held by a woman.

If you said the Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic, give yourself a cookie.

Former Pitt athlete Bobbi Jo Chapman, who now resides in Charleston, W.Va., set the course record in 2000 when she speed-walked the 12.4 miles in a blistering 1:54:16 to win her second straight women’s title.

Pittsburgh’s Steve Bence holds the men’s course record for the 20K Walk, having turned in a 1:54:19 in winning the 1998 event.

No matter what happens Saturday, those records will remain on the books as the 30th annual Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic will be contested over the same altered layout as last year’s event due to the road construction along the original course.

Perspective

Even so, Bobbi Jo’s legacy of walking the fastest 20K ever in Wheeling looks to be in serious jeopardy as 23-year-old Matt Boyles is the odds-on favorite to strike a blow for male superiority.

Boyles was on the United States team that competed in the IAAF 20K Race Walk World Cup in Spain earlier this month after posting a 1:31:01 clocking in the U.S. Team Trials.

To put that in perspective, a 1:31:01 would have placed in the top 100 of all runners in last year’s Ogden Newspapers 20K Classic.

Say What?

In 1987, Carla Beurskens became the first — and so far only — runner from The Netherlands to win here in Wheeling.

Although she was already a world-class marathoner — Beurskens won eight Honolulu Marathons from 1985-95 — Carla had spent most of her racing career in Europe before making the trek to West Virginia.

Carla and her interpreter smiled and shook hands as they were ushered into the interview area by a race committee member.

What followed was one of the most bizarre — yet oddly entertaining — interviews of my career.

You see, Carla spoke Flemish while her interpreter and traveling companion was fluent in both Flemish and French.

Unfortunately, neither one of them spoke a word of English.

Fortunately, a member of the race committee spied a teacher from Wheeling Jesuit near the finish line and knew she spoke French.

I wish I could remember the woman’s name but I was very grateful when she agreed to help out.

The four of us spent the next 10 minutes passing the same phrases from person to person in three different languages.

We probably looked like the worst gossips in the history of the world but I had my story.

And when the interview ended, none of us needed an interpreter for the smiles and handshakes that followed.

You can’t get that from a calendar.

Don Clegg can be reached via e-mail at: clegg@news-register.net