Sports

Many brave cold to honor Betty Rehfuss at 5k run/walk

By Tyler Ohmann

04/23/2013

A celebration of Earth Day turned into a memorial 5k run/walk this past Sunday afternoon at Dakota College at Bottineau.

With the passing of DCB math teacher Betty Rehfuss from cancer this past week, the Earth Day 5k run/walk committee decided to honor Rehfuss and make the run in memory of her.

“After we announced that it was going to be in memory of Betty Rehfuss, there was just an influx of students and other people that wanted to be in it,” said Janeen Pollman, one of the 5k organizers. “For example the whole nursing department said we wanted to come and honor Betty.”

Rehfuss was famous for walking. She walked everywhere she went. The school even held an event for her last year that had many individuals walking for a month on pledges.

“Earth day was important, but doing something in memory of Betty was more because of her walking all the time and she was such an inspiration she was to us,” Pollman said. “It was a perfect tribute for her.”

And 84 people signed up to support Betty in the second annual 5k that began at 3 p.m. on Sunday. With the snowfall from the prior night, the committee was a bit leary about the event.

“We were a little disappointed when we saw the snow this morning,” Pollman said. “We were fortunate that the streets were dry, so people can be out there.”

“It was good to have the gym option, and about half were outside and half were in the gym,” Pollman said.

The weather didn’t stop 58 people from participating, and that’s how Betty would have wanted it according to Pollman.

“Betty would be out there walking,” Pollman said of the weather. “We all saw her walk through all sorts of weather, and that’s what we were all saying when we were getting ready for this is, ‘Betty would be out there walking.’”

The top outdoors finisher was Denny Ziegler, who finished the approximately 3.1 mile run in an unofficial 21 minutes, 46 seconds.

The fastest student was Jacks goaltender Dylan Snyder, who came in with a time of 24:06.

“It always feels good to finish a run,” Snyder said.
He said he came out to run, because there was nothing much else to do.

“It was just something to do,” Snyder said. “There is nothing else to do on a Sunday, and it was fun.”

The weather was the hardest part to deal with according to Snyder.

“It wasn’t too bad, just the wind was bad,” Snyder said. “The very start was the worst. It was awful, really windy.”

The top female finisher was DCB freshman Ashleigh Aufforth, who crossed the finish line at 25:52.

Al Higgins, who took approximately 23 minutes to finish, was the fastest indoor finisher.

One thing is for sure, Rehfuss would have been proud of all the participants.