Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Doused by four colors, they had run the channel and now just had to cross the highway for the last six blocks to the finish line.
That’s where Concrete River Days Color Mob 5K runners encountered Sara White, a volunteer crossing guard.
“Come on gang! Alright! We’ll get you across. Let’s go!” she called out as a group hurried past her over Highway 195 from Railroad Avenue Saturday afternoon.
Standing next to Colfax Police Officer David Szambelan and another volunteer guard, Brian Cornelius, White and her Stop/Slow sign made a noteworthy presence.
“Good job! Beer on the other side,” she said as another group crossed between stopped highway traffic by the Best Western motel.
Once the runners and walkers made it to the highway, White was there to hold them up or wave them across.
“Gotta make you breathe,” she said to one group, Stop sign up, apologizing as they just missed a chance to keep going.
“Oh, you don’t have to make us,” one spent runner said.
“I don’t have any yellow, I need a yellow hug,” White said to the gathering runners and walkers. She got a hug from three of them but not much yellow rubbed off on her bright orange caution-colored shirt.
Then Officer Szambelan gave the signal, White stepped backward into the highway and waved them all across.
Moments later, with traffic resumed, she stood at her post next to the train tracks.
More runners appeared from around the bend, including a 5-year-old boy.
“Alright! Come on little dude!” White yelled.
Behind him was a parent running behind a stroller.
“Jogging with a stroller, that’s what I call enthusiasm!” White said.
More runners appeared from around the bend, now getting sprayed by a hose from one of the adjacent front yards.
“You can do it! Lookin’ good, that’s what I’m talking about,” called out White in greetings.
A four-wheeler “River Taxi” came up the road behind them.
“Everybody left! Everybody left!” White yelled as the vehicle passed on the right.
A minute later, after a couple more color-hugs, she was waving the group across as Szambelan and Cornelius stopped traffic.
White, an environmental scientist for Lower Granite Dam, has lived in Colfax for five years. She was one of the 40 volunteers who worked on the Color Mob 5K, recruited by neighbor Lori Brown, the chairperson for the race.
White grew up in Marshall, Minn., eating little yellow tins of Schwann’s ice cream, which was founded not long before in her hometown. With a masters degree in parks administration and geomorphology, she came to Lower Granite Dam after serving as the Chief Environmental Compliance Officer at Grand Canyon National Park.
She also has worked in law enforcement and search and rescue for the National Park Service, at sites such as Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, the Everglades and Devil’s Tower.
On Saturday, as the sun glared down on Colfax, more color-bombed young boys emerged from the river channel.
“More little dudes,” White said.
After giving one struggling kid a drink from a water bottle in her backpack, White and Szambelan speculated if they were getting to the last of the runners.
“I think we’ve got the final saunterers,” White said.
But more groups kept coming.
Soon another stroller arrived, with a pre-school girl covered in blue, green, orange and yellow.
“Look at you! You’re all bombed aren’t you?” White said to the girl.
Next to emerge, a second grade boy kept a determined pace.
“Six blocks, he’s gonna run all the way, I can tell,” said White.
Szemblan then got a report on his radio that the final walking group had just entered the channel. That meant another estimated 20 minutes.
“Holy Crackerjacks, Batman,” White said.
A minute later, two runners appeared on the nearby sidewalk, originally coming from the other side of the highway.
White turned to see 16-year-old Michelle Thomas and Kyleigh Schulte, 15, with Dixie Cups in hand aimed at her. They doused her in orange.
“Awesome! Thank you, I’ve been waiting all day to get properly bombed,” White said.
The girls, who are cousins from Yakima and Helena, Mont., came to Colfax to do the run with their mothers, who have run several of these types of events.
Thomas and Schulte had told White when they crossed the highway during the run that they would return to spray her in color.
After she paused for some water to get the corn-starch color out of her mouth, White, now appearing like one of the race participants, looked out to see two runners walking up the road from the channel.
“Good job,” she called. “Woohoo! A few blocks to go. You can do it!”
They kept walking. Then they picked up the pace.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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