Under the clearly-visible first quarter moon on November 17, 2007, there were 86 participants in the Night Orienteering event held at Heartland Presbyterian Center, northwest of Parkville, Missouri. About 44 were JROTC cadets from Shawnee Mission West, Shawnee Mission North, and Shawnee Heights in Topeka; the cadets were competing in their own competition. Another 15 were participants in the PTOC Orienteering Training Camp being held concurrently at the Center. This could possibly have been the largest Night Orienteering event ever held in Missouri.
The format of the event was Score Orienteering. The JROTC cadets competed in a 1-hour Score-O and the others competed in a 90-minute Score-O. Everyone started together in a mass start. Mike Shifman, course designer had placed 24 controls throughout the Center, some in very difficult terrain. Michael Eglinski, winner of the 90-minute Score-O, commented that the course was well-designed, offering no clear-cut route to "clean" the course.
Michael did "clean" the course, though, and was the first one back with a time of 1:09:25. Ryan Slebos missed 2 10-pointers, Jon Hemphill missed a 20-pointer (but was 47 seconds slower than Ryan), and Eric Saggars missed a 40-pointer to fill out the top 4 places in the 90-minute competiton. In the JROTC competition, Shawnee Mission North #3 narrowly defeated SMN #2 by 10 points.
Thank you to our hosts, Heartland Presbyterian Conference Center, and to Nick Hockman, Reta Roe, and Mike Shifman for the success of the event.
Reported by Dick Neuburger