Written by Eli Roberts // Graphic by Cooper Turman
The annual “Little Red Run” saw its biggest turnout yet when it was run on Aug. 22 by a group of Harding students.
This run began at the front of Allen Hall early in the morning on the first day of school to get the year started with a challenge.
The distance consisted of three miles across the sidewalks of Searcy, then to the boat ramps of the Little Red River.
This year’s run was the biggest turnout since it began a couple years back with originator and alumnus Grady Moore. Sixty-four students went on this run in contrast to last year only having 32 students.
Men’s social clubs TNT, men’s social club Theta and many new freshmen were the primary runners on this trip.
Junior Clayton Roach, a Theta member, had completed the run his freshman year and wanted to encourage other freshman to run along with this year’s group.
“I think this can help people get out of their comfort zone and break the mold of a sometimes mundane life of a college student,” Roach said “It’s to get up and do something spontaneous, and that’s kind of what the ‘Little Red’ is all about.”
With a new start to college, freshmen got to be a part of something the first day of school that felt inclusive.
Freshman Caden Hope participated as one of the runners in the event.Hope joined along with his roommate who was set on going on the trip, whereas he felt he might have just wanted to stay and sleep.
“It was great, pretty awesome,” Hope said. “It was really worth it and a great way to start off the school year. Only thing I wish is that I could have trained for it.”
Hope went above the bar and decided to swim across the river and back after running.
Senior Marc Barnett, president of TNT, also ran on the trip. He said the event was a good thing.
“It makes it cooler,” Barnett said. “It’s like on the first day of school we’re going to start everything off on the right note. It’s cool, it’s difficult, it’s doing something fun with a ton of great people that [freshmen] are going to get to meet.”
Not only was this run in particular the biggest turn out they had in total size, but also in the amount of freshmen that went along on the trip as well.
“It’s really cool that there were upwards to 20 freshmen,” Barnett said. “I’ve never seen that before.”
