FCS Plus News and Events

Big Sioux Adventure Race News and Details

 First off, we wish to thank Jamie and all the volunteers who made this race a wonderful success.  We thank God for the great weather, especially in light of a very rainy summer! 

The Winners of this years competition!  Congratulations!!

Two Person Team Winners are:

 DJ Buthe and Jessica Sims!

Four Person Team Winners are:

 Andy Howes, Matt Thornton, Mark Cotter, & Brent Eliason

Please enjoy the photos and the description of the race.  I was an observer, and my hat is off to all of you who competed.  I think it was a challenging course, and I hope you all will come back next year.  Jamie and Jeremy plan, promote, and perform this Adventure Race to promote our ministry and provide a fun challenge to the competitors.  We had teams of 2 persons and 4 persons.  We had teams of family members and friends.  There was a strong South wind that helped at times and hindered at times.

They are off and running!  This first leg consisted of a team member who ran to the spot about a half mile away where an envelope of materials was placed for each team.  Then they ran back to the starting point to figure things out, and "put it all together!"  

The next challenge was piecing together a map for  navigating to the next point and a surprise challenge.  Once the map was together, glued into place correctly, they were issued one that was not in pieces to make it easier to carry for the rest of the race.  The next challenge was waiting at the Harrisburg, SD High School and kicking fieldgoals.  The author did not get there in time to witness this event nor to get pictures.  If someone sends in some of this competition, I will put them up.  Then it was up to the team to decide the next challenge.  They could ride their bicycles to Lake Alvin for canoeing.  Or they could navigate to the Corn Maze located on State Route 11 South of Harrisburg and find their way through the maze.  There was a special "bonus" included in the maze, and the teams that found it were awarded a 10 minute time subtraction from their team time.  I don't have photos of the corn maze, but will include some below of the canoing leg of the adventure race.       

 Here are some happy canoers on the way to the landing and then on down the lake.  It was not so easy coming back with the wind mostly in the face and pushing the canoes against the shore.

 "I'm sure happy that part of the race is over."

    More canoers happy to be at the end of this challenge!

 These folks told me they really enjoyed the competition.

Each station had a punch that had to be used on a card to authenicate their completion of each station.  This was station 8 where the canoe part of the course began.  Down Lake Alvin was another station, station 10, where they punched their card, then canoed back to this point, again taking up their journey.  Some came to this course and then went to the Corn Maze, and some did the reverse.  Each team could choose.  Some teams did not read their maps and instructions correctly, and rode to the other side of Lake Alvin.  But, no canoes were there!  They had to cycle clear around and come to the put in point, and this error cost many teams valuable time!

There was not much time to stop and smell the flowers!  But, these were just pretty.  They really did not have much scent.  But the bees were busy gathering their nectar.

I could only think of "Up the creek with a paddle." when I saw this canoer.  His partner is dragging their canoe up away from the landing and he had just bailed out into the drink.  Maybe he needed to cool off a bit?

The teams left either the Corn Maze or Lake Alvin and cycled back to Leif Erickson Day Camp in Sioux Falls.  There more challenges awaited them before they could say the race was complete and the clock stopped.

One of the last two challenges was this station where the competitors had to climb the pole, and then jump to grab a bar.  There was a real "fear factor" for many in this competition.  Here our next victim, errrr, I mean competitor, gets checked out and into the safety harness for the dare.

Here we captured an image of a competitor in mid jump.  She really did a fine job of going for it.  The fear factor did not seem to bother her at all.  Ice water in her veins. Nice job!  Of course they all were safely lowered to the ground with the safety system and pride all in tact.

The other challenge in this last area of the race was to find a small wire picket with the team's name on it.  This required a diligent search and use of a compass from a starting point in order to find the correct direction.  You were not allowed to take another team's picket.  Once you found it, you were able to head back to the finish line.

The finish line!  Here we see Jamie with the clipboard.  I will post the winning team's names and post some pictures when I get them, but these folks were not the Adventure Race winners.  I do know the winning time was just under 4 hours and 8 minutes, and that there were two other teams not far behind the winners.  It was a good competition and congratulations to the winners.  I will set up a new photo gallery category and post some more pictures there.

Golf/Sporting Clays Shootout 2010 a Great Success!! 

FCS+ announces Memberships Available. 

We are asking you to become an official member of FCS+.  Our members will form a volunteer base, a financial base and a group of people to promote our ministry and purposes.  If you are interested in joining as an individual, family, or business, send me an email and we will send back the invitation form to join.  jmccullough@fcsplus.org.  The number of members is important as potential donors and those offering grants often ask us "How many members do you have?"  And they base their donation on these numbers.  So, please help us out.  Join today.  Email me for a membership application.  I will get it out to you quickly.

There is a new tab on the bar of our site for membership.  If you click on that link, it will bring up a membership application in Word for you to print and email.  If you would like to use PayPal to pay or donate, let us know if it is a donation or a membership fee so we can account for it properly.

We need new members to partner with us and help us in financial matters, prayer support, and in a source for volunteers for our events.

We are able to receive electronic payments and donations!

We want to let you know that we are able to receive one time donations utilizing credit cards and we can set up monthly donations utilizing Automatic Withdrawals from bank or savings accounts or through credit cards.  We will be incorporating these conveniences into our webpage in the near future.