Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette IN MEMORIAM: 1990 Earl v. Jones Sr. has ensured that the lives of the two runners who died in 1990 are not forgotten. Click photo for larger image. Related article Move afoot to return marathon

Seventeen years ago today, Faye Morgavo and her mother, Amelia Hough, went to Oakland to watch the parade of Pittsburgh Marathon participants. As they had done three times before, they waited to see Faye's oldest brother, Richard Hough, run by and exchanged thumb's-ups.

Then they went back to the Hough house in Greenfield to wait for Richard to visit after he finished the 26.2-mile race.

This time, the phone rang when they got there. Richard had collapsed and died in Homewood. He was 47.

"I didn't believe it at first," Morgavo said. "I said, 'No way. I just saw him.'"

Hough and Jack Niles, 60, of Silver Spring, Md., became the first two fatalities in the Pittsburgh race, which was discontinued after the 2003 running for financial reasons. Niles, who had run 12 marathons, collapsed six miles before the finish at Point State Park.

Both men had heart-related incidents. Hough's brother Dean said doctors believe he had a problem with a valve.

Hough's death sent waves of grief in many directions.

"It was a bad day," Dean Hough said.

Hough grew up in Greenfield in a family of 10 children and left behind three children of his own. Some of his nine siblings will visit his resting place in Homewood Cemetery today.

"This day brings back a lot of memories, good and bad," Morgavo said.

The death of the two runners still troubles Larry Kuzmanko, who was the Pittsburgh Marathon race director.

"That experience was extremely difficult," said Kuzmanko, now director of special events and cultural programs for Allegheny County.

"I guess you know something like that is possible -- people had expired in other marathons -- but usually the way the day goes, the elite runners come in, you finish the race, you keep busy. That day, someone told me what happened and two people pulled me aside for a little while."

Earl V. Jones Sr. knew only that Hough was partners with his brother Dean in a tire store in Hazelwood, but he can step outside his Hazelwood home to pay tribute to the fallen marathoner.

Jones, 76, a retired steelworker, is a full-time volunteer who has spent the past quarter-century and many thousands of dollars trying to make the world a better place. When he heard about the two runners' deaths in 1990, he was moved enough to spend $5,000 on a triangular granite monument that was completed later that year.

After being displayed for a short time at the Point -- where the Hough family posed with it for a photo -- and for years in Greenfield, the monument now sits on a Duquesne Light lot at the base of an electrical tower next to Jones' home that he has cleaned up and turned into a shrine.

"It's what I was put on Earth to do," Jones said of his kindly acts. "I had good parents, a good wife, a good son."

"He's a good man," Dean Hough said of Jones. "He likes to do for people a lot."

Hough, an Allderdice High School graduate, took up running as an adult and was the only one in his family who did. He eventually developed the stamina to run marathons.

"Twenty-six miles? My car would be tired by then," Dean Hough said. "But he was fit as a fiddle."

His relatives said he seemed like the ideal runner for the marathon.

"He never drank. He never smoked. He was well built," Morgavo said.

Hough liked to go on early-morning training runs.

"I'd get to work around 8 and he had already put in his miles, out there running at Schenley Park," said Dean Hough.

"He'd run in small races, too, community races, and the Great Race."

Dean Hough said because of his brother, he was sorry to see the Pittsburgh Marathon canceled, but he understands financial difficulties. Last year, he had to give up the tire business they operated because he could no longer compete with the national chains

Morgavo remained a fan of the marathon after her brother's death.

"I still watched it every year," he said. "Some of my brothers couldn't."