Corn Palace Relays on despite forecast

Despite the rainy weather conditions Friday and predicted rain for today, the Corn Palace Relays are still on as scheduled for 9 a.m. at Joe Quintal Stadium.

Last year’s relays had to be rescheduled and ultimately canceled due to wintery weather conditions, however this year’s spring weather came early and brought nice weather in the beginning of March and track meets have been able to go on without any problems.

“It’s kind of an old legend that bad weather and the Corn Palace Relays go together,” Mitchell High School track coach Geoff Gross said.

“This big day on the calendar always seems to be associated with bad weather.”

Last year there was snow on the ground during the relays causing the event to be canceled. However, Gross said unless there are dangerous weather conditions today the meet will go on as scheduled.

“We have a beautiful all-weather track, people have rain gear and our timing equipment is housed in a trailer,” Gross said.

“There’s a difference between being a little bit uncomfortable and being in an extreme weather situation.”

19 teams are set to participate in the relays this year and there will be two separate classes competing. The “elite” class will consist of AA schools and any other team that wants to compete against the AA teams. There will also be the B class which will consist of A and B school competitors. The top six athletes will place in each event.

“We give that option for smaller schools to move up and compete against the bigger schools and hopefully they can run some better times against AA teams,” Gross said.

Area track teams that will be participating are: Mitchell High School, Mitchell Christian, Wolsey-Wessington, Wessington Springs, Sanborn Central/Woonsocket, Plankinton, Mount Vernon, Kimball/White Lake, Winner, Ethan/Parkston, McCook Central/Montrose, Platte-Geddes and Hanson.

Platte-Geddes head coach Regan Holleman said her team is eager to be able to compete in the relays this year since last year’s meet had to be cancelled.

“Last year it didn’t work out for us because of the bad weather,” Holleman said. “We’re very excited to come and compete against all the different AA teams. It’s just a great competition and it’s a good day for us to load up on our relays without having to focus so much on field events.”

The Corn Palace Relays will be Mitchell’s home opener and its lone home meet for the season.

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