Bannons join effort to fund ALS research

YOUNGSTOWN — Chuck Bannon’s family promised him his suffering would not be in vain.

Next weekend, his brother, sister and widow, Team Bannon, are riding in the Tri-State Trek, a 272-mile bicycle ride from Boston to New York City in his honor to raise awareness of ALS and money for research on the disease that struck him down at age 44.

“We promised him,” his sister, Lisa Bannon Steinmetz of New Jersey, said of herself and Chuck’s brother, Breen of Cornersburg, and Chuck’s wife, Elaine Bannon of Michigan.

Chuck, who grew up in Boardman and graduated in 1982 from Boardman High School, died of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) April 18. He lived three years after his diagnosis.

Read the full story in Monday’s Vindicator and on vindy.com