Students organize Titan Dash 5k for Le Center classmates

Ninety-four fifth through eighth grade students lined up outside Tri-City United Le Center on Thursday. Wearing white t-shirts with sky blue lightning bolts reflecting their school colors, the students bowed their heads, bent their knees and reached their fingers out toward the earth.

“On your mark,” shouted a TCU safety patrol officer. “Get set... go!”

With the wave of a flag, the Titans were off. The runners sped past their fellow classmates cheering from the sidelines as they continued down a 5k route circling the school in the first ever Titan Dash.

The 5k run, which saw nearly half of TCU Le Center’s fifth through eighth grade class, was the work of TCU eighth graders Thomas Plut, Evan Schmidt, Brenden Frederick and Andrew Fogarty, who put the run together for their Passion Projects class.

“We have a class every other day where we have to pick a project to do,” said Schmidt. “We chose to do a run, so we’ve been setting it up for a few months now.”

The four students had been working from the beginning of the school year to organize the run. They designed and sold Titan Dash t-shirts to participating students to finance the event and planned the race from conception to completion.

Shaun Timmerman, instructor of the Passion Projects course at TCU Le Center, said the class, which made its debut this year, was designed to train students to be leaders in their school community by formulating projects to benefit their classmates.

“It’s for students that are leaders in the building. We want to get them to think about creating a project or something that is going to show some leadership skills,” said Timmerman. “You have to create something essentially — and the boys that are running this, their idea was to put on this 5k.”

During the run, Plut, Schmidt, Frederick and Fogarty poured water for the students to drink after they completed their run. Students who didn’t participate in the race still came out to support their fellow classmates by carrying signs at the sidelines cheering on the runners. It was an event which brought the whole school together.

“TCU Le Center already has a pretty good culture and climate. It’s really easy when we have a whole bunch of teams that are willing to participate and help out,” said Timmerman. “Continuing to build school culture is a big aspect and that’s why I love TCU. I think it’s just a good thing to build a little bit of community.”