Melissa Haworth-Cox
Yearbook editor
The Southeastern women’s cross country team is beginning with a fresh start: a new coach, a new mascot and a revived school spirit for the new school year.
According to gosoutheastern.com, coach Ron Hair is returning to Southeastern after having received his Bachelor of Science here in 1975.
Since then he has had 35 years of coaching cross country and track in four high schools before returning to SE.
In this time period he has coached four individual level regional and had 11 high school level state qualifiers.
He has also had five district team championships, five win at the Cowtown Marathon in the high school division and one team finish the regional championship team.
The team with nine runners this year began working out and training for the season on Aug. 19. There are four returning runners this season: Kayla Sanders, Cheyenne Buck, Tabitha Oglesby and Shelby Fraser.
The team also has five new runners: Kayle Reaves, Bailee Weger, Haylee Story, Tracie Lee and Amanda Kirby.
Southeastern cross country will travel to six away games throughout the season before the conference game. The team has its first meet on Sept. 6 against the University of Texas in Tyler.
Hair said the team is prepared for the meet and that they are where they should be at this point in the semester.
Hair said the most important meet is the conference in Russellville at Arkansas Tech on Oct. 26. The next one beyond that would be the regional at Sioux Falls in South Dakota, according to Hair.
He said that Southeastern usually competes with East Central and Harding the most during the season.
Hair said, “I think we have a good group of freshmen; I’ve seen Kayle Reaves run since junior high. I’m excited to see her join the team.”
Sanders brings two years of experience as top runner to the team.
By the end of the semester, Hair says he would like to improve the speed of the team as well as their placement in the Great American Conference this year.
Last year the team was placed eight of nine teams in the Great American Conference. Hair said, “I think the girls feel they’re better than eighth place. I think they’re better than eighth place.”