SCOTT WHEELER/The Ledger Scott Lepper, front, and Thom Croce ride Saturday through Polk County on County Road 540A during the Friends-Together AIDS Ride 2.

Enlarge this photo

State-Long Mission

Bicycle Trip Through Florida Enhances Education on HIV/AIDS

By Robin Williams Adams
The Ledger
robin.adams@theledger.com

LAKELAND
Daily rain, the occasional flat tire and honking horns hadn't discouraged Thom Croce and Scott Lepper as they rode into Lakeland on Friday on day three of a five-day bicycle ride to raise money for Friends-Together, a Lakeland program that does HIV/ AIDS education.

"I don't feel like we've ridden 10 miles, let alone 300," said Lepper, 41, who is making his first long-distance bike quest.

"Not only is it a great cause, it's a great physical challenge."

He and Croce, 44, are traveling from Tallahassee to Naples, a 500mile trip they expect to complete today, rain or no rain.

"We ride anyway," Croce said when asked how they cope with riding in humid Florida weather.

"People living with AIDS don't get to wake up and decide `Do I live with this today?' "

On Saturday, their schedule would take them through Mulberry, Fort Meade, Arcadia and Punta Gorda to North Fort Myers. They end the Friends-Together AIDS Ride 2 today at Gulf Coast High School in Naples.

Croce teaches math there. Lepper does substitute teaching when he's not doing his regular job as an airline pilot.

This is the second year Croce has made a trek to raise money for Friends-Together, which in addition to education programs does empowerment camps for families affected by HIV/AIDS and provides school supplies to children in the families.

He previously rode in another AIDS bike ride. When it lost its sponsor, Croce asked one of the founders of Friends-Together if they could use $10,000 for the program. She quickly accepted the offer.

"I was excited, especially that Thom and the teachers I worked with over the years thought enough of the work I did with the kids to do that," Cathy Robinson Pickett said Friday night at a reception for the bicyclists.

As an AIDS educator, she has spoken to students at schools in several counties, including Polk. She has talked to students in Naples for more than 10 years.

Croce said he and another rider last year raised more than $13,000 for Friends-Together. He hoped for $25,000 this year, but pledges are low, about $10,000 so far, he and Pickett said.

In addition to raising money for the program, Croce and Lepper said, they ride to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS.

"It's something that with knowledge can be controlled or stopped," Lepper said.

Croce said he has friends living with AIDS now and, in 1987, lost a good friend to AIDS.

"You watched this guy who was bright and vibrant just waste away to nothing," Croce said.

The disease affects people of all ages, races and sexual preferences, they said.

Pickett, infected with HIV/ AIDS after being sexually assaulted at the age of 18, makes that point in her talks. So does the message on her group's banner: "Only men, women and children get AIDS."

Croce uses the numbers of people infected by AIDS and by HIV, the virus leading to it, in problems in his math class.

"I'm riding because we need to educate people," Croce said. "Kids are the ones we need to get the message to."

Croce isn't hesitant to speak out. He is one of the faculty sponsors of Gulf Coast High School's gay-straight alliance.

Students formed the group last fall after a teacher told a female student to take off rainbow-colored shoelaces she was wearing, which were a symbol of gay pride, according to an article in the Naples Daily News.

An accumulation of slurs and derogatory remarks, combined with the shoelace incident, led to the group forming, the article said. School administrators weren't supportive, the article said.

"He's a teacher who's willing to be out there for his kids and be real," Pickett said of Croce.

Robin Williams Adams can be reached at robin.adams@theledger.com or 863-802-7558.