Umstead Reedy Creek meet, 11/7/99
Bob Smith, Meet Director

The September meet, after being postponed by Hurricane Floyd, was finally held on a sunny, warm day (warm for November, anyway). Even though the meet wasn't listed in the N&O's weekend section, a good crowd turned out to enjoy the weather and the woods. Fortunately, Floyd hadn't caused anything like the damage Fran left behind in 1996. The park staff had cleared out any debris or fallen trees from the trails, and I didn't find any major problems away from the trails when I did my field-checking. Falling leaves may have made some of the less-used trails harder to pick out, but the main trails were well-trodden.

Carlie Huberman turned in the best time on the White course. Ruth and Jiffy followed her to make sure she didn't go astray, but apparently Carlie did the course without needing any real help. Paul and Cathy Jarmul took a few friends along and came in second after Carlie. Several other family, friend, and scout groups also went out on White.

Jonathan McDaniel literally ran away with first place on Yellow, even after having to run to the parking lot and back a few times to get his entry form filled out properly. He finished in 23:40. Kevin Kelley's group, who finished second, took over 12 minutes longer. Cammie Crampton-Sexton's group, doing their second course of the day, finished third.

On the Orange (intermediate) course, Karen Hales came in first at an even 47 minutes. Donald Ip and his friends Chris and Mick, who were fifth on Yellow, tried again and came in second on Orange. The father-daughter team of Jim and Bridgit O'Donnell finished third.

Gary Wiggins, who usually runs Green, decided to take it easy and do the Brown course. He still finished first, almost 10 minutes faster than Charlie Buckner-who had already done the Green course, by the way. Blake Norwood was third, just under 3 minutes behind Charlie.

On the Green course, Rob Stevens finished in 49:39. Doug Corkhill was second, just short of 52 minutes. Andrew Lotze and Tom Laponte were two seconds apart for third and fourth place.

Some folks on the Orange, Brown and Green courses rather pointedly let me know they didn't appreciate one of my control placements. The location was a ditch, down the hill from one of the park maintenance sheds. Since I could see the shed from the ditch, I thought the ditch would be easy to see from the shed and hung the marker fairly low so it wouldn't be TOO obvious. Apparently it worked its way even lower by the time the meet started, because several people said they found it down on the ground inside the ditch. Ooops! Sorry about that!

Thanks to Gary Wiggins for helping with registration, teaching the beginners class, and picking up controls. Thanks also to Charlie Buckner and Jim O'Donnell for helping pick up controls. And special thanks to Carlie Huberman, who helped me with registration by organizing the money bag, making change, and giving out maps.