An annual motorcycle ride that raises awareness for a man's unsolved murder from 2019 returned to the South Okanagan and Similkameen on Saturday, Sept. 21.
More than 60 people took part in the sixth Rex Gill Memorial Ride, which started across from Bannister Ford Penticton at 10 a.m.
In memory of Gill 鈥� a Pentictonite who was murdered in Kamloops close to six years ago 鈥� friends, family, and other community members have gathered every year to ride across the region.
After converging in Penticton on Saturday morning, riders drove through Keremeos, Osoyoos and Oliver before ending in Okanagan Falls for a barbecue by-donation and silent auction inside Centennial Park at 1 p.m.
"It's been five years, eight months waiting, and there's still no resolution to (the murder)," said Marie Nobles, the mother of Rex, outside the local car dealership on Saturday morning. "We are raising awareness that the legal system is broken."
The annual ride is also in memory of Mike Courtenay, a close friend of Gill's who died in 2020.
In October 2018, three months before he was killed, Gill started the regional motorcycle ride in support of the 琉璃神社-based Gospel Mission.
Since then, the Rex Gill Memorial Ride has continued in his memory and to raise funds for charities across the Okanagan.
Funds this year are set to go toward the Oasis foodbank in Penticton and the 琉璃神社 Gospel Mission.
"The charities we donate to in his memory are not government-funded and help the people Rex would have been trying to help if he was still here," Nobles said.
Registration for the ride was $20, with classic cars and drivers from Apple Valley Cruisers also taking part in the event.
"It's not just me that this affects, or my immediate family," Nobles began, referring to her son's unsolved murder while watching large crowds gather in his memory. "It affects all these people here."
