What a
day
It was a spectacular morning in Mid-Missouri. Fall was rolling up to full speed. There was a chill in the air for the first time since March or April, which provided a certain zing or bite, for the first time in a while after six months of temperatures in the sixties and above.
The sky was a beautiful, clear, blue gradient, with different shades stacked on top of each other from the horizon to overhead as the sun continued to climb. The leaves on the trees had begun to pop. Rich, deep hues of orange, red, and yellow were sprinkled among the green, ready to burst and soon take over the landscape. It was a day Brian Simpson, who loved the outdoors, would have cherished.
Saturday, October 8 Harrisburg High School hosted the second edition of the Brian T. Simpson Cross Country Invitational. The meet was a competition that included 335 runners from 17 middle schools and 28 Class 1 and Class 2 high schools at Gans Creek cross country course in Columbia. The world-class facility was a project with an initial cost of more than $8 million, a total that grows with time as work is done to add features to it. It is the home of the state high school championships, the annual Gans Creek Classic High School and College meets this year's NCAA Division I Midwest Regional, and the 2025 NCAA Division I National Championships.
Nearly 2,500 athletes competed at the Gans Creek Classic High School meet two weeks before, which included one race with more athletes than all combined at the Harrisburg meet. The Simpson Invitational was an intimate event comparatively. It was peaceful and more laid back with a lot fewer bodies zipping this way and that, than two weeks before, which made the beautiful setting more prominent and encompassing on October 8. The meet had a lot of meaning and stirred a lot of emotions.