Jessica Rux beats adults, Frankie Renteria takes men’s
trophy
They are the Los Angeles Lakers of the Red Ribbon Mile run.
This past Sunday for the third consecutive year, Hollister
runners Frankie Renteria and Jessica Rux won the Red Ribbon Mile in
convincing fashion.
Jessica Rux beats adults, Frankie Renteria takes men’s trophy
They are the Los Angeles Lakers of the Red Ribbon Mile run.
This past Sunday for the third consecutive year, Hollister runners Frankie Renteria and Jessica Rux won the Red Ribbon Mile in convincing fashion.
Renteria, a former member of the San Benito Haybalers track and cross-country team, finished the one-mile run through Hollister in 4:27 while Rux completed the task in 5:35.
Renteria and Rux, both accomplished runners in their own right, dusted the 70 other competitors. Rux, 10, beat her closest female runner, Georgia Riley, by over a minute.
“It’s amazing really,” said Marc Narasaki, Administrator of the San Benito Substance Abuse Program. “There are all of these women out there, 20 years old, 30 years old, and here comes this little 10 year old beating them all.”
Rux also recently won her age group in the Mount San Antonio College Cross-Country Invitational.
Renteria, who attends and competes for Hartnell College, also cruised to an easy first-place finish on Sunday morning.
“He ran the mile in under a minute which is impressive,” said Narasaki.
Starting in the San Benito High School parking lot for school buses, the 72 exited the parking lot, hooked a right on Nash Road before hanging a left on Monterey Street a block later. From there, the runners headed straight down Monterey Street toward the finish line on Fifth Street.
After being the first runner to break the tape, Renteria walked a half block back to cheer on Rux as she outpaced mostly everyone else. In the overall male division Robert Pickens, with a time of 4:45, came in second just in front of Scott Bang at 4:27.
The second place overall female runner was Pauline Beatty at 6:28 edged Georgia Riley, who completed the mile in 6:59.
The weeklong Red Ribbon Campaign began in 1985, when Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Enrique Camarena was murdered by drug traffickers. Californians for Drug-Free Youth sponsored the first statewide Red Ribbon Campaign in 1986 and the National family Partnership sponsored the first national campaign in 1988.
Along with the mile run, Red Ribbon organizers hand out red ribbons to local businesses, SBHS and middle school students. The Red Ribbon celebration also includes a drug awareness poster-drawing contest for the local students. This year the grand prize for the best drug awareness poster went to SBHS’s Yan Lee while Jack McGrath won in the sixth to eighth grade group.
Spring Grove fifth grader Hannah Bernosky’s poster won the third through fifth grade group and Levi Lust took home the kindergarten through second grade prize. Lust is a second grader at Sunnyslope MS.
