News Bulletin! This just in! Professors Daniel Hughes and Brian Cottle have just driven a group of students from Llano High School to a place known as the South Plains, the City of Lubbock. The traveling parties took an almost-unheard-of-record time of five and a half hours to journey 320 miles! Lewis and Clark, using horses, since gasoline was an inflation-charged dollar a gallon in the 1800s, needed two years to see the USA, get home and get all that attention. “Hughes and Cottle”--maybe history will be kind to them.

The ice has been broken! (What does that MEAN, anyway?) Yellow Jacket athletes, Sept. 27, ventured into the REAL land of Region I! Will they ever be satisfied again with Wimberley and Ingram, with Burnet and Canyon Lake?

Call this bunch, the “a-cross country” team. Bearing gifts and the pride of Region IV, the Llano girls ran off with the Class-3A crown of the Lubbock Invitational, while Marcos Vallejo captured the individual title on the boys’ side, and teammate Erik Forrister finished third. Lubbock will host the region championships in just over five weeks.

“The girls ran well as a group,” head coach Dan Hughes declared, “and by that I mean, there was only 25 seconds between our first finisher and our fifth.” The top five contribute to the point totals to determine a team winner.

Lauren Parker ran the two-mile course in 13 minutes, 33 seconds, and she was fifth overall. Kaily Timmons, 13’40”, was eighth; Cara Mack was next in line, followed by Samantha Lopez, 11th, and Jenna Farris, 17th.

There was a lot of talk about the course at Mae Simmons Park--and the climate. “There was a little more pollen in the air,” Hughes disclosed, “so allergies were affected. The layout opened with some steep hills that can take your legs out.” Timmons added: “I was glad to learn it; I think the knowledge will give us an advantage when we return here (Nov. 8) for the region meet.”

Parker echoed that. “We’ll know what to expect; it was important to get used to everything. Also, the trip was planned well, getting here early enough on Friday to rest up for the run on Saturday.”

Cara Mack is one of the new faces in the crowd. “The people are great here; it’s exciting.” Mack, a junior, was in Caney, Kansas, a year ago. Caney is an hour and a half north of Tulsa. “The workouts are harder in Llano; the coaching is more intense and demanding--but I like that.”

Such schools as Perryton and Andrews, Burkburnett and Abilene Wylie were introduced to freshman Marcos Vallejo and junior Erik Forrister. Vallejo, who really wasn’t pressed hard after a mile of the three-mile challenge, has now run four times as a member of the varsity, and no Class-3A foe has beaten him. His time was a magnificent 16 minutes, three seconds, while Erik, edged at the wire for silver by a whisker, turned off his watch after 16 minutes, 19 seconds.

“Both Marcos and Erik are running super,” Hughes noted. “They’re running faster than I thought they would, and their times in Lubbock were right up there with past clockings among the top ten in the region competition.”

Brooks Lewis was the only other Jacket on the boys' team. His time was a respectable 19’32”, and he came in 38th. (No relation to the aforementioned Meriwether Lewis.)

Senior Chelsea Montgomery, whose injured ankle is almost healed, was along for the ride to the South Plains. She had this comment about Vallejo: “I hope he realizes his impact on the school and community and how important his success is; they see the amazing job he’s doing; if he keeps on running hard and training well, he’ll be outstanding as a senior.”

You wonder if Marcos was thinking, “Geez, a 640-mile round trip for a 16-minute gallop?” Coach Hughes was thinking: “We’ll run a lot faster in November, and the teams seeing this course for the first time are in for a rude awakening.”