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If all goes well, Matthew Shepard will be hiking in Colorado next month to fight hate crimes. Matthew Shepard the teddy bear, that is.

Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was murdered in Laramie last October, will be in sad but cute company. He will be one of some 175 teddy bears, each standing in for a victim of a hate crime. The bears will be carried by volunteers walking in the "Hike for Hope," sponsored by the BEAR Foundation, which stands for "Bringing Equality And Respect."

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But the anti-hate hike almost didn't happen, and still might not. Organizers have been wracked by infighting and power struggles. What was first envisaged as a 1600-mile international trek, and then scaled back to be a journey from Wyoming to Colorado, is now planned as just a day walk within Colorado, where the BEAR Foundation was founded this year in Fort Collins.

The hike was originally the brain-child of Lee Thompson, a 35-year-old gay artist in Snohomish County, Washington. Inspired by Shepard's killing, Thompson created a successful "Stop-The-Hate" quilt-patch project, which enjoyed a month-long run earlier this year at Seattle's Art Not Terminal gallery.

With that accomplishment under his belt, Thompson hatched plans for a more ambitious Shepard memorial: a 1600-mile "Hike Against Violence" from Alaska to Wyoming. Planning to walk with a friend, Thompson said he would stop in communities along the route to promote hate crimes' awareness. He won sponsors and support, including an endorsement from Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother. Thompson founded the IHAVE Foundation, which stands for "International Hike Against hate and ViolencE" (www.ihave.org).

Thompson contacted another artist, Narrowsburg, New York-based Kelly Dean, who works in teddy bears, to design a stuffed animal to join him and his friend on the hike. Thompson planned to keep the teddy as a memento after completing the journey.

Dean's partner, Olivier Dunrea, a painter and children's book illustrator, had a better idea make dozens of bears and auction them after the event to raise funds to fight hate. "When the teddy-bear world finds out about this hike," Dunrea told the Seattle Times, "everybody's going to want to make and donate bears." Sure enough, soon there were some 175 teddies ready to hike, donated by bear-makers around the world and crafted in recollection of specific victims of crimes.

But as the event grew in complexity, the organizing effort proved daunting to Thompson, a struggling folk artist.

"I just think Lee got overwhelmed," says Dunrea. "I don't think he was prepared for all the attention and all the people who jumped on the bandwagon and got behind him. The poor man was just out of his depth."

Last April, Thompson checked himself into a hospital. When Elton John gave a concert in Laramie last June to benefit hate crimes, the IHAVE Foundation was not among the beneficiaries.

With hike planning in disarray, Thompson's colleagues wrested control of the event from the IHAVE Foundation and launched the BEAR Foundation. In its abbreviated form, the "Hike for Hope" is now set to take place in Colorado sometime in October. And the teddy-bear motif, once just a side dish to the hike, has become its main course.

For now, the bears are being kept in Utah by Mary Pugmire, "the official representative of the bear community to the BEAR Foundation," according to the group's web site. Pugmire "has been giving them shelter until time for their work to begin," BEAR notes. "She has been documenting the bears and instructing them in 'Hike Etiquette.'"

At the head of the hate walk, if it happens, will be Matthew, its 24 inches crafted in imported German mohair. "The bear is completely hand-made by Kelly Dean," Dunrea explains. "It has German glass eyes, hand-stitched leather paw pads, and is fully jointed and armatured inside, so its arms bend. It's really almost like a small, furry child."

But no actual child is likely ever to cuddle Matthew. Valued at around $5000, the memorial bear will probably spend its days in a teddy-bear lover and hate-crime opponent's well-guarded collection.

How did bear artist Dean Kelly rise to the challenge of memorializing the slain Shepard? "Kelly's bears are very sophisticated, very rustic," notes Dunrea, "The one thing he did differently for the Matthew bear was give him a more wistful, vulnerable expression, so the bear looks younger. We wanted this bear to really tug at people's heartstrings."

Dunrea says he is saddened by the disarray into which plans for hike seem to have fallen. "I just feel that the teddy bears are the best venue for bringing awareness to hate crimes," he says. "Hate crimes have to be stopped, and Matthew was the launching pad for the whole thing. If this hike doesn't take place I think it will be a great loss." **