It was a cold, snowy day as I was riding in the backseat of my husband’s pickup while writing this article on my laptop computer.

The farther north we got, the thicker the snowfall was.

We were on our way to Jacksonville, Ill., south of Chicago, to attend our second “Ride for the Relay” banquet. Jim Roberts, a friend and fellow Relay rider, is making the trip with us.

Each year in September, riders from all over the country board their motorcycles and head for Chicago to get on the beginning of “Old Route 66” and ride the 2,300 miles across America on this historic highway that ends at Santa Monica Pier in California.

The purpose of the ride is to raise money for cancer research.

Rodger Fox, a cancer survivor, came up with the idea to start the “Ride for the Relay.” Asking friends and businesses to sponsor him, Fox made the ride on Route 66 alone in 2006 and raised $4,400 for the American Cancer Society.

Wing World Magazine, a Honda Gold Wing publication, published an article about Fox’s trip and that got the ball rolling.

In 2007, six riders made the trip and raised $9,000. In 2008, 23 riders, including Bobby Taylor from Echo Lake, raised over $25,000, and in September 2009, Taylor made the ride again with 25 others, who to date have raised over $20,000, with their goal being $30,000 by June 30.

Taylor, along with the rest of the relay riders, were recognized and given a plaque at the banquet for their efforts in raising money for the cause.

Everyone has a story, and this is Jim’s.

He was given the name “Preacher” on the Route 66 relay rides because he was the one who prayed over the riders and their motorcycles each morning on the 12-day trip. That’s just the kind of man he is.

From the time Roberts was born until he was in first grade, he was raised by his grandmother, who was at that time legally blind and whom he credits as being the only “solid rock” in his growing-up years.

Because she could no longer take care of him, he was returned to his mother — who didn’t protect him — and stepfather, until he was 12 years old.

After a severe beating by an alcoholic full-blood Cherokee Indian stepfather, Roberts’ grandmother somehow got him to the Tulsa, Okla., sheriff’s department. She wanted the sheriff to see for himself what her grandson was having to tolerate.

Roberts was placed, by the Juvenile Court, in the Tulsa Boys’ Home, where he said that first night, “I cried all night long.”

He knew he was protected there, but he said all he could think about that night was being away from his grandmother and his family, even if it was a dysfunctional one.

Boys will be boys, and Roberts was picked on when he tried to settle in at the Boys’ Home. It wasn’t long before he ran off.

The boys from the home went to public school and still at the age of 12, Roberts didn’t come back to the home one day after school.

Of course, he was searched for, but no one found him behind the old stack of lumber, way out back, in a local lumber yard where he had spent two hungry and cold days and nights.

When daylight came after that second night, he left his hiding spot and went to a local motel to get a room.

With no money, needless to say, the owner knew who he was and called the home. “Pop,” the home superintendent, came to his rescue.

Roberts’ next and last time to run away was at 13. This time, he was in big trouble.

He had taken a truck from the lumber yard and was headed for Joplin, Mo. He didn’t know anyone there but just wanted to go.

Near Afton, Okla., he ran out of gas and went to a farmer’s house to see if he could do some work for him, for gas.

The farmer could tell he was just a kid and called the sheriff. He spent the night in jail and could hardly wait to get back to the boys’ home. He knew jail was not his favorite place to be. He never ran away again.

He spent the next five years studying hard and trying to fit in. He was always known as one of “the Home boys,” but he got involved in school sports and activities and didn’t let those words bother him.

After graduating salutatorian of his senior class in 1957, Roberts attended the University of South Carolina on an athletic scholarship his first two years.

Upon losing his scholarship because of injuries, Roberts joined the Marines as a fighter pilot in Vietnam.

He was shot down twice and taken prisoner of war for four days by the North Vietnamese. It was some South Korean soldiers fighting alongside the American soldiers who rescued him.

During his 12-year stint in the Marines, he finished his last two years of college, via extension campuses, earning a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Tulsa.

Roberts is a cancer survivor who is retired from The Oilgear Company, where he was employed as a sales engineer for 22 years.

He and his wife, Kathy, live in Sanger, where they are active in their church and in their seven grandchildrens’ lives.