By Katherine Yeager | Echo
As past and present Taylor families, faculty and staff flood Turner Stadium for Saturday's Homecoming football game, another group will gather together for the first time in 50 years commemorating a 3,500-mile journey from "sea to shining sea" this Saturday at 7:30 a.m.
Former athletic director and football coach Bob Davenport will lead a 10-mile bike ride to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first cross-country bike trip by Wandering Wheels, the Upland-based cycling nonprofit located three blocks from campus on Thoburn Street.
This ride accompanies the 20-mile Taylor Bike Ride, led by Dr. Tim Herrmann ('75) and Mike Falder ('94). Both groups will meet in the Randall Science Center parking lot.
According to Davenport, the cross-country rides ended in 2011. Since the first cross-country trip in 1966, four and a half decades of teams culminated in 3,000 bikes "dipped" in the Atlantic and Pacific ocean-a highlight of the trip.
What began as a men's outreach trip for high school and college students grew to co-ed trips in January 1969 and included children as young as 12 as well as an 84-year-old rider.
Over the years, the groups faced weather extremes, from tornadoes to snow; high winds to 120-degree desert heat. Former rider Bob Candida remembers several days when the team's ride led them away from civilization and into the Nevada Desert.
"We spread large tarps out on the desert floor, and in our sleeping bags, (watched) the brilliance of the stars in the desert sky," Candida said. "The music guys like DeVee Boyd, George Smith and Wes Rediger played guitars, and we sang songs like 'How Great Thou Art.'"
One by one, Candida remembers, the voices dropped off to sleep. Fifty years later, he still believes he will never forget that brilliant majesty of God's creation that night.
Sleeping where they could, the "Wheels" spent nights in numerous churches, often asking churches to house the group hours before nightfall.
Forty-five years later, the impact of the trips still resonates among former participants.
Davenport, now 83, recalls individuals contacting him, expressing deep thanks for the experience decades after their trips.
Candida believes his life was changed through the trips.
"It was through (Davenport's) devotions and the personal (witnesses) of George Smith, Benny Lester and Jack Van Vessem that I did decide that I wanted to give my life to Jesus and be a servant to his glory because of his grace," Candida said.
Davenport remembers decades of ministry and memories: devotionals at campsites, pit stops at grocery stores for food donations (often stale bakery goods, dented cans and old fruit) and even a team choir.
The choir began when one trip member, a guitar player, and other members, all having grown up singing in church, decided to sing songs such as "Amazing Grace" and "This Land is Your Land" wherever they stopped. Davenport recalls one "choir performance" in a church service in the middle of Kansas.
According to Davenport, the performances were half planned and half spontaneous. One unplanned performance occurred in Independence, Missouri. When the group stopped at the Truman Library, they realized that former President Harry Truman was also stopping for a visit. Davenport spoke with a security guard who was fascinated by the group. The "Wheels" sang for Truman the following morning.
"I stood in awe as we sang 'This Land Is Your Land' to former President Truman and thought about what he had done in his life for our country," Candida said. "The following year we sang and shook hands with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House. It felt like you could see the weight of the Vietnam War in his face and hands."
The trip members themselves included future leaders and visionaries. Robert Wolgemuth, former president of Thomas Nelson Publishing and owner of literary agency Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc., traveled on a Wandering Wheels trip, as did Nelson Rediger ('66), a Taylor regional director of development.
Rediger fondly remembers riding across Kansas with the wind behind their backs. By noon, the wind propelled the team over 80 miles. Then, the winds changed, blasting the team head on.
"It was brutal, but you just pedaled in your easiest gear to arrive safely for supper," Rediger said. "You never walked your bike."
Davenport and the staff of "Wandering Wheels" paved the way for over 50 years of ministry from the roads of Grant County to the trails of the nation to the hearts of the riders and residents.
