Storm Lake rallies around John Brostad during hospice battle with cancer
A full-color poster of John Brostad running drew hugs, prayers and cards to his Mallard Drive yard as Storm Lake honored the teacher-coach-bus driver facing hospice.
A giant poster of John Brostad running stood in the yard on Mallard Drive, and people coming through the 47th annual Star Spangled Spectacular ride/run kept stopping to hug him, pray with him and leave cards.
Brostad started hospice care two weeks before the July 4 ride/run and is fighting pancreatic cancer after earlier battles with melanoma and testicular cancer. This year was the first time in decades he could not take part in the 11.1-mile, two-person bike-and-run race around the lake.
His son, Matt Brostad, arranged the poster. Roxie Brostad said John spent years placing cones along the route at 5:30 a.m., then switched to painting markings on the pavement after people began stealing the cones. For the last 25 years, he has also served as announcer for the ride/run.
By 2023, when Buena Vista University profiled him at 71, John Brostad had completed more than 40 ride/run races and was still welcoming participants at the starting line. He had missed only one other ride/run in the event’s history, when he was recovering from testicular cancer surgery.
Storm Lake Community School District honored him for 47 years of service as a bus driver, and the Iowa Pupil Transportation Association marked that same milestone in 2021. School athletics records list him as girls track and field coach from 1984 to 2016, boys and girls cross country coach from 1979 to 2009, and girls tennis coach from 1977 to 1983.
Matt and Katie Brostad were named co-commodores for the 2026 Star Spangled Spectacular, whose theme was Built on Freedom, Bound by Community! More than 285 businesses and families had contributed to the fundraising effort, which had topped just over $48,000 toward a $50,000 goal by early July.
That same festival filled Storm Lake on July 3 and 4 with the Big Parade, patriotic ceremony, Artists’ Alley, street performers, the classic car cruise, food vendors and fireworks. Brostad could not drive his Corvette in the July 3 cruise, even after polishing it for months.
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