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From left, sisters Anita Kobata, Naomi Killian, Rebecca Buchanan and Deborah Ridgeway all ran track for Meridian High School in 1991, and did so again at the Bellingham All Comers Track and Field meet on Monday, July 11. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Buchanan)
The children of the four Osburn sisters also participated in the race alongside their parents. One team included Maive and Eleanor Ridgeway, as well as Breeze and Britta Buchanan. That team took first place. Sophia Killian was on another team that took third. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Buchanan)
Deborah Ridgeway, Rebecca Buchanan, Anita Kobata and Naomi Killian took fourth place in the race, but participating in the event was the primary goal for Deborah Ridgeway especially. While she struggled to finish the race amid the cancer’s effect on her body, she pushed through to complete it with her sisters. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Buchanan)
From left, sisters Anita Kobata, Naomi Killian, Rebecca Buchanan and Deborah Ridgeway all ran track for Meridian High School in 1991, and did so again at the Bellingham All Comers Track and Field meet on Monday, July 11. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Buchanan)
Four sisters who all ran track for Meridian in 1991 decided to do it again
BELLINGHAM – In 1991, four sisters ran track and field for Meridian High School. They all ran different events, a few being long-distance runners and others were sprinters or hurdlers.
Deborah Ridgeway and Rebecca Buchanan are identical twins and the youngest of the four. From there, the oldest, Naomi Killian, and middle sister Anita Kobata are spaced out by a narrow 18-20 months.
At one of their track meets that year, they formed a complete 4x200 relay team. Osburn, their maiden name, would be the inspiration for what they called themselves: The 4xOsburn.
“We knew we weren’t going to win, but we just did it,” Ridgeway said. “I don’t know who talked us into it, if it was our coach, but we were ‘like let’s just do it.’”
Ridgeway and Killian were not sprinters and thus had never participated in a relay before. Buchanan and Kobata had some experience in the event.
“We just did it as a joke then,” Kobata said. “How many times are you in high school, and you have four sisters, and you can all do a relay? Not too many people can say that."
Tim Mahoney, a Lynden Tribune reporter at the time, snapped a photo of the four girls running together.
The four Osburn sisters in 1991 when they were a whole 4x200 relay team at Meridian on their own.(Photo by Tim Mahoney)
Ridgeway recently re-discovered that old newspaper clipping. She decided it was time the 4xOsburn made a comeback.
That idea was quickly made more urgent. Ridgeway was diagnosed with metastatic—or stage IV—breast cancer, meaning it had spread to other areas of her body. She was recently given months to a year to live.
“I have three kids myself, and they are 11, 12 and 14,” Ridgeway said. “I just want them to see life is worth living no matter what your situation is. Just have fun.”
Ridgeway wants her children to remember her for who she was and the way she approached each day. That’s why she got the 4xOsburn team back together.
“We’re all going to have trials,” she said. “I don’t want this disease to define me. I want them to remember their mom was funny and creative—that was my motivation.”
On Monday, July 11, the four sisters regrouped at a Bellingham All Comer Track and Field meet to run together in an organized meet for the first time since 1991.
“If Deborah wants to do it, I’ll do it,” Kobata said. “Her and her twin, Rebecca, always have crazy ideas, and we always go along with it.”
The children of the four Osburn sisters also participated in the race alongside their parents. One team included Maive and Eleanor Ridgeway, as well as Breeze and Britta Buchanan. That team took first place. Sophia Killian was on another team that took third. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Buchanan)
Who won the race?
A team consisting of Ridgeway’s daughters, Maive and Eleanor, as well as Buchanan’s two, Breeze and Britta, took first. Killian’s daughter Sophia was on another team that placed third out of the four teams in their heat.
“I would love to say that we won the race, but we didn't even place in the top three,” Buchanan said. “Thankfully, they give out participation ribbons to all who lost. My green participation ribbon hangs proudly in my rearview mirror, reminding me to embrace life.”
Having their daughters there to compete alongside them was a special moment, and exactly the kind of memory all four sisters were hoping for.
“That was a highlight,” Ridgeway said. “Just watching them kind of get into it too, and really want to be on a team, and to be a part of that memory.”
Ridgeway’s sisters had plenty of positive things to say about how she is handling her diagnosis and how she has always approached life.
Buchanan noted that with Ridgeway’s diagnosis, “there comes a time when you enter a season of lasts.” Even if that’s on the horizon, it hasn’t changed Ridgeway's mindset.
Deborah Ridgeway, Rebecca Buchanan, Anita Kobata and Naomi Killian took fourth place in the race, but participating in the event was the primary goal for Deborah Ridgeway especially. While she struggled to finish the race amid the cancer’s effect on her body, she pushed through to complete it with her sisters. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Buchanan)
“One thing that I admire about Deborah is how she is embracing this season, full of light and life,” Buchanan said. “Any excuse that I could come up with to get out of this thing would fall short to the determination that Deborah had to recreate the 4xOsburn relay team.”
Ridgeway is thankful for the opportunity she had to share this time with those closest to her, in light of all that’s been happening in the world.
“The whole thing was just a fun experience, despite everything going on,” she said. “But that’s just how we live, we have such a weird world right now. Just enjoy life. There are the things we can control and there’s the things we can’t.”
