Ride with the Voice of the Pirates Oct. 4 to raise funds for nursing scholarship

Jeff Charles, the voice of the East Carolina University Pirates, will trade field side for the open road on Oct. 4 in a motorcycle ride to raise funds for a nursing scholarship.

The ride will benefit the Heather Anne Purtee Memorial Scholarship in the ECU College of Nursing. The scholarship is named for Debra and Jeff Charles’ daughter, who was killed in an automobile accident in December 1992. She was 19 and an ECU nursing student.

“The motorcycle ride is an opportunity to provide scholarship assistance to deserving ECU nursing students while honoring and preserving the memory of our daughter, Heather Anne Purtee,” Charles said. “She loved nursing. It really was her dream.”

This is the fifth year that Charles has hosted the event, which previously raised funds for the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf in Wilson.

Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, at J&E Harley Davidson in Winterville. No pre-registration is needed. The ride to Washington will begin at 10 a.m. A donation of $10 or more includes breakfast from Krispy Kreme, lunch from Domino’s Pizza and Logan’s Roadhouse and beverages from Pepsi. The ride returns to Greenville at about 12:30 p.m. at Ron Ayers Motorsports.

“It’s open to everybody,” Charles said. “We have veteran riders and we have people just getting started. People sometimes bring their children.”

Past riders have come from the local area as well as Raleigh, Elizabeth City and Lumberton, Charles said.

Charles is in his 21st year as the Voice of the Pirates and has been riding motorcycles about as long. “We look forward to having everybody come out,” he said.

To make a contribution to the nursing scholarship, contact Mark Alexander, development officer in the College of Nursing, at 252-744-2238.