"Pacin' parson" logs the miles to fund medical research

Ten thousand miles is a long way to walk. So sometimes Don Stevenson, 71, does a little singing. Sometimes he does a little praying. Sometimes he chats with strangers, hoping to cheer them up.

He's walking the loop of Game Farm Park in Auburn these days, hoping to raise funds for research on Huntington's disease, a brain disorder that hurt a good friend's family. But in the past, he's walked the West Coast for a stranger with multiple sclerosis, hit all the county seats in Ohio for a friend with cancer, and crossed the country for a father-in-law who'd had Alzheimer's disease.

"If I did it for myself, I wouldn't make it out of the county," said Stevenson.

Over the years, he's raised about $100,000 in donations for research on various diseases. This particular "park walk" is designed to highlight a hereditary disorder many people do not know they have until after their children are born. His friend, Jack Meteyer, who lost family to Huntington's, is walking most of the miles with him.

In Auburn, where Stevenson lives, he has become something of an icon — the "pacin' parson," a former pastor who will give advice to anyone who cares to walk by his side. On this particular walk, he has a strict schedule to keep — 34 miles a day, six days a week. But friends said Stevenson will stop or slow for anyone who wants to walk with him.

"If you wanted to crawl, he'd crawl with you," said Meteyer, 78.

Stevenson became a walker several years ago, after he retired from a 28-year career as a truck driver for Darigold. A father of eight, a grandfather of 40, he wanted to try writing Christian novels and short stories for children. He had been so many things: a U.S. Marine, a schoolteacher, a church pastor, a volunteer firefighter.

That first walk, from Seattle to Portland, Maine, Stevenson did for his 62-year-old wife, Loretta, whose father had Alzheimer's disease. The couple crossed the country in four months, taking Sundays off for church. Stevenson wore out six pair of shoes. Loretta logged 9,000 miles in the van.

She would drive a few miles ahead, then wait for her husband to catch up, then drive a few miles more. To pass the time, she paid the bills, wrote in her journal, mended the clothing he tore on the road.

These days, with all these walks behind them, Loretta will leave her husband for awhile, head over to the laundromat, or lobby a hotel for a free room. Except in places like the Yukon, where there is so much wilderness.

"He passed quite a few bears and moose," she said. "I kept a close eye on him up there."

On Saturday, Loretta had set up shop in a shed at Game Farm Park, putting out coffee, cocoa and fliers for passers-by. With temperatures below freezing, she stood in a sweat suit with beige earmuffs and pink butterfly barrettes in her hair, reminding Stevenson to press the mile counter when she is gone.

Then she sent him off on another loop of the track with a kiss.

Over the years, the Stevensons have raised money in a variety of ways — walking to every lighthouse in Washington state, walking all the way from Tijuana, Mexico, to Anchorage, Alaska. Then there was that 106-mile trek across the Cascade Range — blindfolded.

Stevenson did that, after some training, to raise money for Maria Federici, the young woman who was blinded when a piece of particle board from a truck on the freeway slammed through her windshield and hit her face. She was left partially brain-damaged.

At the time, Maria did not have insurance. Her mother, Robin Abel, of Renton, said the money helped with therapy, and so many other supports. Abel could not quite put the effect of the walk into words.

"It's like someone offers you a hand when you're ready to drown," she said.

Stevenson is hoping to raise $10,000 for the Huntington's Disease Society of America this year. If only those scientists can find some key, he said — something that unlocks all these diseases, from multiple sclerosis to Huntington's.

"I believe if we find a cure for one, like dominoes, they will all go down," he said.

Until then, he will walk. On the rare occasion he gets discouraged and feels like "a dummy" walking around out there, Stevenson remembers all the letters. He thinks of the sick people who say it's moved them to see him out there, doing something in the name of their pain.

Cara Solomon: 206-464-2024 or csolomon@seattletimes.com