Road Rally goes to the back roads during CAFNR week
by Kielly Jewell, posted Oct. 2, 2009

Columbia’s rural roadways were taken over by University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources’ students on Sunday, Sept. 20. These students were participating in CAFNR Week’s Road Rally, sponsored by the Agricultural Systems Management Club. Road Rally is a mobile scavenger hunt that takes competitors around the Columbia area to complete certain tasks and reach several checkpoints along the way.

This year, nine teams participated in the race. At 2 p.m. teams raced off at five minute intervals from the Trowbridge Livestock Center parking lot. Once the scavenger hunt was complete, the teams raced back to the finish at Trowbridge. The winner was decided on by who finished the fastest, with the least amount of mileage used, and how many points they received for completing each task. Collecting a piece of road kill, picking cedar tree berries, and finding a corn cob without the kernels were some of the bonus point tasks.

One of the teams competing was the Agricultural Education Society Team 1: Cheryl Ficken, Megan Dohrman and Kelin Kruse. From the beginning, the team had high aspirations of winning the contest.

“Out of all of the CAFNR Week activities, Road Rally, Skit Night and Mud Volleyball are right up there,” said Cheryl Ficken, agricultural education senior, “but I think Road Rally is my favorite.”

Along the course, some teams met each other face-to-face on the road or passed them at checkpoints. It helped to find other vehicles in the race so the teams knew they were going in the right direction and what teams were lagging behind or catching up.

In the end, the Ag Ed Society Team 1 reached the finish line third. They didn’t place, but they still had fun participating. However, Ag Ed Society Team 2 did win first place, followed by a Sigma Alpha team in second and a Collegiate Cattlewomen team in third place.

“We finished respectfully,” said Megan Dohrman, agricultural education junior. “We put up a good fight and didn’t embarrass ourselves.”

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