The Daily Tar Heel
Printing news. Raising hell. Since 1893.
Thursday, March 28, 2024 Newsletters Latest print issue

We keep you informed.

Help us keep going. Donate Today.
The Daily Tar Heel

Chapel Hill couple jogs through blindness and marriage

Emily and Dennis have been married 32 years. Dennis and Emily run 4 to 8 miles every day. "You get into a routine. You don't think of it as anything special," Dennis said about running. "Staying active keeps you relatively young," said Dennis. Emily has been blind for 53 years.
Emily and Dennis have been married 32 years. Dennis and Emily run 4 to 8 miles every day. "You get into a routine. You don't think of it as anything special," Dennis said about running. "Staying active keeps you relatively young," said Dennis. Emily has been blind for 53 years.

They aren’t students, and they’re not athletes by any formal definition. They’re not known at UNC in an official capacity, though they embody what it means to be a local celebrity. The odds are good that any given UNC student has seen them at some point.

They are an easily recognizable pair of runners, often on campus, always together, literally supporting each other as they go.

Emily and Dennis, who asked that their last name not be disclosed, go running together nearly every day. They’ve lived in Chapel Hill almost consistently since they graduated from UNC in 1978 and 1977, respectively.

The two met in 1977 through a mutual friend. Dennis, who had just graduated with a degree in French education, volunteered to be a reader for Emily, who is blind. Emily was a senior studying public health nutrition who had recently taken up jogging through her physical education elective.

Soon, she was convincing Dennis to join her.

“I got him to go out running, which was not his thing,” she said. “And we just started gradually. We’d go on the track — most of the time at the end of the day, no big deal. I was not very popular when I got him to go in the morning sometimes.”

The two have now been married for almost 32 years. Dennis said he loves Emily’s fearlessness. She said she appreciates his support and encouragement. And running remains an important part of both of their lives.

They jog on a rotation of three different routes, which range from 4.5 to 8 miles in length.

“This is just part of our normal routine,” Dennis said. “I guess people that have been around here a long time get used to seeing us, but it’s so normal to us we don’t think anything about it.”

Weather permitting, Emily and Dennis run up Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, through McCorkle and Polk Place and past UNC Hospitals on Manning Drive.

Emily said she likes running simply because it gives them an opportunity to go outside and take in fresh air. Dennis said it keeps them young.

A familiar sight to students, they’ve unintentionally acquired a group of admirers.

Freshman Hannah Wood, who has spotted them on multiple occasions, is among that group. She said she’s impressed by their partnership.

“I just think it’s really sweet that they can find things to do together and stay active,” she said. “I just think it’s so cool that they have that quality time and shared interest.”

But Emily and Dennis said they don’t think there’s anything special about their routine.

“We don’t really have a story. We’ve been together for a long time, and we do what we do,” Dennis said. “We don’t think there’s anything particularly remarkable about it. I guess I’m glad that somebody else does.”

On a hike up Grandfather Mountain in Linville one day, they passed Chapel Hill police officers who recognized them immediately.

“That was hilarious because I thought, here we are way away from home and all of a sudden you see a group of people who recognize you for walking around town,” Emily said.

No doctor has ever been able to definitively tell Emily what caused her blindness. She’s been blind for 53 years, almost her entire life.

“It’s just part of me. I don’t resent it,” she said, adding that one challenge is being unable to drive.

“I could see up to a point when I was a teenager, and when a doctor said, ‘You’re never going to drive a car,’ I looked at him like, ‘Who are you kidding? You’ve taken all my freedom away,’” she said. “To have to ask somebody because you couldn’t drive and you couldn’t take driver’s ed, that made you feel outstandingly nerdy.”

To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.

Having attended public school before laws mandated equal education for people with disabilities, Emily said she often felt more isolated.

“You just have to depend on people, and sometimes that’s not always easy because your agenda is not my agenda,” she said.

She’s now comfortable depending on Dennis and on public transit to get where she wants to go. When they run, Dennis calls out to let her know when they’re approaching any of the notoriously uneven spots on their route.

“I do feel more secure. There are a lot more cracks in the sidewalk and stuff over the years that one needs to be careful about,” she said. “I’ve fallen a few times — never broken anything — even hanging on to him.”

But they have no plans of stopping, and their exercise is a bit of an analogy for their relationship, Dennis said.

“You keep at it, and it’s not always easy, and you just keep doing it. And it’s sort of like exercise,” he said. “It seems like an awful, easy, simplified analogy but you do. You just keep going.”

city@dailytarheel.com

Special Print Edition
The Daily Tar Heel's Collaborative Mental Health Edition