Chile Pepper Festival founded by CSC’s own

This weekend, the CSC cross country teams will travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to compete in the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival. As one of the largest invitationals in the nation, the festival’s roots sit close to home to a recognizable member of CSC’s administration—CSC President Randy Rhine.

In 1988, Rhine, and his best friend Joe Fennel, the “founding fathers” came up with the idea of putting together a cross country festival after running a marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.

“The whole town gets behind it,” Rhine said. “It’s a huge festival atmosphere, with a carnival, and a marathon. Volunteers are on a wait list for years to be able to work in the race.”

On the way back from the festival, Rhine and Fennel started talking about setting up a cross country race. Then one day while training with Kelly O’Meara, a local cross country coach, they found out that at the time, his  team’s budget was $100. That’s when they got the idea to make it a fundraiser.

“We all had a role in fundraising and marketing,” Rhine said. “After probably three or four years we incorporated as a non-profit, for business reasons and insurance reasons.”

Rhine said that there were a few challenges when setting up the race, including weather.

“We actually ran it in May to begin with,” Rhine said. “It’s pretty rainy down there. The weather made everything else a challenge as well, with logistics, crowd management, and traffic.”

Rhine also said that the first year there were only about 250 participants, the year after that it doubled.

“We outgrew our parking pretty quickly,” Rhine said. “Once we added the collegiate and high school events it really mushroomed. Coping with the growth was a pretty big challenge.”

The Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival fundraises for local high school cross country teams. Rhine said that on the registration form there would be a box of what school they wanted to support and after all the bills were paid off, they would distribute the money according to percentages on the forms. Over $400,000 has been donated to high schools in the northwest Arkansas region. Last year alone, $46,000 was donated.

Rhine also said that he is excited to see CSC participate in the invite, even though the coaches knew about the race well before he got to Chadron.

“I think it’s great that we brought our cross country team back,” Rhine said. “I’m excited that they want to go down there and compete. It’s a really good meet for them to get a gauge of how they stack up against national competition.”