Looking back to the summer of 1982, much has changed while much has also remained the same. That summer, Israel launched a massive attack in south Lebanon, and John W. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting of President Ronald Reagan. Italy won soccer's World Cup. The best-selling record of all time, Michael Jackson's “Thriller,” was released. A classic film about runners and their struggles named “Chariots of Fire” was on its way to winning the Academy Award.

The same year, a group of Blacksburg runners was busy conceiving a running event that would soon become an annual New River Valley tradition, the Draper Mile.

When the gun sounds at 6:30 p.m. Friday to start the race, it will mark the 25th consecutive year that local runners have hurried down Draper Avenue toward downtown and the crowd awaiting them at the finish line. The race is run in conjunction with the annual Steppin' Out festival and is Blacksburg's oldest race.

“I was one of the ones that came up with the idea. I wanted to do something with our running club and with the festival,” said Chris Gibson, who now lives in Pittsburgh. “I remember reading about the mile race in New York City on Fifth Avenue, and thought it would be nice to have one here and finish right downtown.” Gibson went on to mention that although he had the initial idea, it was Beth Howell [then Beth Dillinger] who actually was responsible for implementing it.

“[He] thought it up, and I got it going,” said Howell, 51, then a decorated runner and now a program manager in Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech. “I actually thought it was a really crazy idea, because it would be right there in the middle of the street festival and at night. I didn't think the town would let us do it.”

Not only did Blacksburg allow the race, the town embraced it. The field and the viewing audience has been growing since. With a new staggered start to deal with the increasing number of participants, the race will not be going away anytime soon.

Howell recalled a few colorful events scattered throughout the history of the event, which she continued to help run for 20 years.

She remembered when Blacksburg High School football players were required to run the race by their coaches, who would be at the finish with stopwatches timing the event.

One year, the race marshal, who led the runners on a bicycle, was hit by a car.

She also remembered that some of the more interesting episodes occurred before the age of cellphones, where a stopwatch had to be hurried from the start to the finish before the runners crossed the finish line.

“One year we used people on rollerblades, who would race the stopwatches down,” she said, laughing. “One guy was going about 30 miles per hour down to the finish and couldn't stop. People had to catch him.”

Howell spoke mostly about how the race evolved into a community event for both the young and old and everybody in between. “It's become a real popular event with the kids in the area, and once you get old enough, it's like a rite of passage,” she said. “Sometimes we had five people from a family participating.”

Christiansburg's Louise Akers, 81, began running at age 57. It was her late son-in-law George Porterfield, the longtime Christiansburg High principal who died this spring, who sparked her interest initially. “He used to stop by after he ran and he acted like it made him feel so good,” said Akers, who has now run in races from San Diego to Baton Rouge, La.

“I asked him, 'George, you think I could get into it?' And he said sure.”

She did.

“He told me to walk one block then run one. Soon I started running in all the races I could find.”

She's run every Draper Mile since the first one in 1982.

“Isn't that something? Every year they say I won't be coming back,” she said. “And I'm a little older now, and have to watch out when it's so hot. But I enjoy it, and if the Lord wants me to, I'll run it.”

It was a natural step for Blacksburg's James DeMarco, 33, to take over the leadership role this year for the Draper Mile. DeMarco's Runabout Sports store has sponsored the events and other like it for years, and he also coaches the distance runners at Blacksburg High.

“We're expecting about 200 this year, and we'll have three separate starts,” DeMarco said. “We're also adding a little bit, such as a speaker system to announce the runners at the end, as well as more prizes.”

Speed bumps recently added to Draper Avenue will be another new factor of the race. DeMarco doesn't believe they will slow the runners down.

“We ran over them real fast, and they didn't seem to have any effect. I don't think it will be an issue,” he said. DeMarco looks forward to the next 25 years for the Draper Mile.

“This is the 25th and we're hoping to make it the best one yet. There's always a lot of laughing and giggling from runners at the end of the event, and we want to continue that where everyone has a great time,” he said.

“We have just as many entries from people in their 50s and 20s. It's really a great family event, a huge spectator event, and I'm excited to be a part of that history and tradition.”

The Children's Fun Run begins at 6:20 p.m. at the corner of Kent Square Parking Garage. The Elite Mile will begin at 6:30 at Children's Day Care, where the Junior Mile will begin at 6:37, and the Open Mile will begin at 6:45.