Keeping alive the memory of one very special little boy has been the five-year mission of Snoqualmie Ridge resident Laurie Gibbs.

Tanner Jeans was a typical 7 year old, full of life and personality.

“He was a great kid,” Gibbs said. “Everybody wanted to be his friend. He was constantly surrounded with kids.”

Tanner Jeans died in 2004 after being struck by a service truck while riding his bike. His death shocked the small Ridge community, and a non-profit group grew out of that experience, looking for a way to prevent similar tragedies.

Gibbs, as president and founder of the Tanner Jeans Memorial Foundation, has worked to ensure that what happened to Tanner happens to no other child. She was named a Citizen of the Week for her efforts in promoting bicycle safety among young people. The foundation’s culminating event, the annual Bike Safety Rodeo, is this Saturday, June 13, at Snoqualmie Ridge Community Park and Cascade View Elementary.

Benches to scholarships

It all started with a candlelight vigil, and a park bench.

When Tanner died, June 23, 2004, residents gathered for a candlelight vigil, as they tried to cope with the tragedy. Tanner’s mother’s sorority sisters were collecting money for a park bench in his name, and Gibbs, a friend of the family, stood up during the vigil to ask for money, no matter how little, for the cause.

“Tanner’s accident affected everybody,” Gibbs said. “All I can remember saying that day was, I don’t want this to ever happen again. There has to be a way do all we can to prevent something like this.”

She left a donation box on her porch, and within two weeks, had collected over $20,000.

“I just didn’t know what to do with that money,” Gibbs said. A friend suggested forming a non-profit group, and the foundation started that year.

Now, besides the park bench in Tanner’s name, there’s also a Tanner Jeans Field on the Ridge, where the foundation created a picnic shelter and backstop with a concrete bench that reads “Have Fun, Play Fair, Play Safe.”

The memorial foundation will offer a four-year full-tuition college scholarship to the University of Washington for two of Tanner’s classmates. The group also works to promote sports safety and stranger awareness.

It raises money through fundraisers, including a golf tournament, June 15 at the Snoqualmie Ridge TPC, and a Halloween costume party, silent auction and reunion concert for the band Exit 25, planned for this fall.

The group’s major endeavor every year, though, is the bike safety rodeo.

The event started after a conversation between Gibbs and Snoqualmie Police Chief Jim Schaffer.

“We thought it was a perfect partnership,” she said. “This is an opportunity for children to not only interact with the police department, and understand that the police are their friend, but also to teach them really important bike safety skills.”

With so much traffic in the community, learning bike safety is important.

“This is a biking neighborhood. Kids are on their bikes all the time,” Gibbs said.

This year, the rodeo is aimed at middle-school-age riders, who are at the age of trying stunts and riding on trails.

Radio Disney will broadcast from the Ridge, and will bring dancers to perform. There will be a helmet decorating station. For older cyclists, the local Dirt Corps bike group will show bike demos, and there will be prizes galore, including bikes, skateboards, fingerboards, T-shirts, shoes and safety gear.

“This is a way to reach out and get more and more kids to come,” Gibbs said.”The bottom line is we want every kid in the Valley and beyond to go through some sort of safety training.”