Photo credit: Eric Ayers
Members of the Peroni family, from left, Carla, Mario, Julie and Ava, participated in the Ogden Newspapers Wellness Weekend 5K Run/Walk hosted by WVU Medicine Children’s in memory of Julie’s father, John Saffell, of Glendale, on Saturday.
WHEELING — The Ogden Newspapers Wellness Weekend, hosted by WVU Medicine, takes place annually over Memorial Day weekend, but for one local family attending this year’s event was bittersweet, as they were attending in memory of a loved one who passed away on the morning of race day.
John Saffell was the longtime mayor of Glendale and a very active member of the community, and while his death was not unexpected due to his declining health in recent years, his family was saddened Saturday.
“My dad passed away this morning,” his daughter Julie Perroni said. “He was at Good Shepherd Nursing Home and had Parkinson’s disease. He was in such a bad state the last two days of his life that we weren’t planning on doing this race, but the nurses there were really nice and they said, ‘You should do the race in memory of him, because that’s what he would have wanted,’ so we decided to do the race.”
Saffell, 84, passed away Saturday, but his family wanted to complete the race and pay tribute to him, especially since Saffell himself had a passion for participating in road races and was a veteran of the Ogden Newspapers Wellness Weekend Races.
“He ran the Ogden race for many years,” Peroni said. “He was a very avid runner. He ran quite a lot.”
Saffell moved to Wheeling about a year before joining Good Shepherd, but his roots run deep in Glendale.
“Everybody in Glendale knows John Saffell,” Peroni said.
On Saturday, Perroni, along with her daughter Ava and daughter-in-law Kara, participated in a 5K walk hosted by WVU Medicine Children’s, and her son Mario participated in a 5K run hosted by WVU Medicine Children’s.
“He runs, we walk,” Peroni said, “but we all do it in his name.”
