Faculty and Staff Race to Victory at Butte-to-Butte

EUGENE, Ore.  - They didn't expect to win a prize. They didn't even expect to be competitive. But then something funny happened. A team comprised of Northwest Christian University faculty and staff  took first place in the COED Corporate division in Eugene's 36^th Annual Butte-to-Butte race on July 4^th.

The Butte-to-Butte is an annual race that features a 10K run as well as a 4.5 mile walk that takes place each year on the Fourth of July. More than 20 individuals and families from Northwest Christian took part in the event with 12 runners working towards the winning time. The top five individual finishers, one of which had to be a female, combined for a team time of 4:29:19, outdistancing themselves from the second-place finishers by more than 20 minutes.

The scoring runners in the NCU contingent were staff members Dean Neiwert, David Haggard, Daniel Figueroa and Mindi Wagner, along with senior student Patrick Rose.

Another member of the Northwest Christian University family also had success. Faculty member and Cross Country/Track & Field Coach Heike McNeil finished on top of a field of 155 runners to claim victory in the women's 35-39 age-group division with a final time of 40:09.  She was also the fourth fastest women's finisher in the entire race, among several thousand other ladies.

"I'm just coming back from a broken foot," said McNeil, "and I didn't have too many expectations for the race. I ended up doing pretty well and I was actually disappointed when I finished, because I just missed breaking 40 minutes, and I was the fourth woman."

McNeil has been inspired to continue training and looks to become competitive once again at the 1500 meter distance during the 2010 track & field season.