Brandon Cash || Staff writer
This week, the Reserve Officer Training Corps organization at Murray State continues to prepare for its annual Best Racer Competition in April.
The event is a fundraiser for nonprofit organizations where students compete in a series of 10 different events ranging from a zombie attack to tire flipping.
In previous years, the proceeds from the competition went to the Wounded Warrior Project but ROTC recently decided to sponsor a hunt for individual soldiers.
“This hunt is completely paid for through Best Racer Competition,” said Cadet Eric Dobberfuhl, senior from Mequon, Wis. “One hundred percent of what we raised is going to this,” said Dobberfuhl. “We are hoping that we can sponsor more than one soldier next year and years to come depending on how (many) more competitors we can get for the competition.”
The idea of the fundraiser is to keep everything local. However, since Wounded Warrior has grown, ROTC decided to switch to sponsoring hunts for soldiers in order to show the community where the entirety of their donations is going.
The soldier they sponsored last year was Brandon Zettl. Zettl served in active duty for 10 years and was deployed to Africa once and Afghanistan twice. He currently lives in Clarksville, Tenn., and is pursuing a degree in engineering.
Since the goal of the fundraiser is to keep everything local, ROTC holds the hunt at Snipe Creek Outfitters, a hunting and fishing lodge located not far outside the city limits.
The competition takes place at Hamilton Fields where teams from various fraternities, sororities and other organizations compete.
Some of the events in the competition include a zombie attack where participants will have flags attached to them and one zombie will try to pull off the flags.
There will also be a log walk where the team members will all stand on two 4-by-4 logs and are required to walk a hundred meter distance and back again.
Other events include a rope bridge, ammo carry, litter carry, sled pull, sled drag, sit ups and a high crawl/low crawl course.
Said Dobberfuhl: “The ROTC organization at Murray State also wants to get the student body involved and show them what those in the ROTC program do.”