MWC story for Columbia Missourian

[Brooks Holton]

Paddlers,

My name is Brooks Holton. I’m a second-semester graduate student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where I’m the Assistant Sports Editor at the Columbia Missourian. One of our editors at the paper, you know him as “Pirate” Scott Swafford, mentioned the MWC celebrating its 50th anniversary, and I thought it would make for a great story for the publication.

Aside from a brief rundown from Scott, my experience with slalom and downriver racing is nonexistent at best, so Scott suggested I reach out to the message board for potential sources to be used in the story. With it being the 50th anniversary, I’d like for the story to take a historical perspective on how racing in Missouri has developed over the years (boat/course design, etc.) and the community that has developed around the sport at St. Francis River.

If you’d like to be involved with the story, please contact me either on this thread, email (brooks.holton@gmail.com), or phone (502-889-0074). My plan is to get background reporting on the story done during these two weeks leading up to race weekend, then head down to the river for the event and turn the story around sometime the week following the championships.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Brooks Holton

[jw]

Hi Brooks –

That sounds great – we’d be glad to help you out.

We are printing a commemorative program for the races & it will include a lot of information useful to your story.  In addition to a lot of pictures of racing over the years, there are articles about the first race, about Silvermines the race site used through the 80s, Elmer Tiemann, the previous owner of the race site at Millstream Gardens, info about the geology that makes the shut-ins so special to us, descriptions of the boats & gear we use, discussions of the different race types & rules, and interviews with folks who have been racing at the St. Francis Race for many years.  We can send you some of the content for an early look, and direct you to some of the sources we used.

And there are many other perspectives you can get from folks here on the message board.  You might also want to read the article on Terrain Magazine that was written last month.

Fifty Years of Missouri Whitewater Championships

I’ll drop a note to you via email.

– Jim Warren

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