People of Conshohocken – Cameron Smith (you need to see this one)

People of Conshohocken

Cameron Smith

3-16-16

by Brian Coll

This is our eighth installment of our People of Conshohocken series…

We have close to 10,000 people in our borough, add in the residents of West Conshohocken, Plymouth and Whitemarsh and we have a large community. Some of the people that will be featured will be well known in the area, some will have just moved into the area, some will have been here their entire lives. Some of them may be business owners, or people who walk around the area, or maybe work in the area. Maybe you know them, maybe you don’t. Everyone has a story. While we are only going to take their picture and maybe ask a question or two, we want to share these stories with you.

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         I was watching the runners in the Conshy Classic 5K go by on Saturday, some people were in Irish gear, others dressed with tutu’s, some had their favorite superhero shirt on, but a real hero ran among them. A fireman, dressed in full firefighting gear. I had to get this guys story. I expected to find out it was some 23 year old new recruit with one of the local fire companies. I was wrong, I was so wrong, I was wrong by 30 years! Under all that gear was 53 year old Cameron Smith. Cameron has been involved with Barren Hill Fire Company for over 18 years. I reached out to Cameron and after we were talking for about 15 minutes about Conshohocken and some of his runs he stopped the conversation and said what was it you wanted to talk about… I said I think we got it already. It was about as easy going conversation as someone could have with their best friend let alone a stranger. We have some great people in our community. I’ll share a little of that conversation….. He was a little nervous about running this past week, not that it was his first run or anything, in fact he had done this run in full gear a couple of years ago. It was just that he hadn’t run in about 6 months. Some of his runs have included a 50 miler, and when I was gasping for air just thinking about it he dropped the bomb on me that he has done a 140.6 mile run as well. That is about as much as I drive in a month! He has really gotten into the long distance runs. Besides running, he has been involced with the Masonic Lodge over the years and some other community events. His wife wonders where he gets all his energy from. I’m going to touch on the running one more time….. in 2013 he took on the challenge of the Philadelphia Triathlon. He did the sprint portion of it and was in the 15th group of 100 competitors, which was the final group of the day. As he finished, he noticed there was a runner missing from the group before him. One of the competitors drowned in the group before. He reached out to the family and passed on his finisher medal to them. The two men had a lot in common, about the same age, both have two children, it was the first Triathlon for each of them. Just this year he spoke to the family again when he completed another event and was told the son still keeps the medal because his father competing in the triathlon was a huge life goal for his father. I was touched and wasn’t sure what else to talk about, Cameron just seems like such a real good guy. He lived in Conshy for a short period of time before calling LaFayette Hill home. If you see him running in gear again….. let’s cheer like crazy for this real life hero. Thanks for taking my call Cameron, thanks for doing what you do for our community.