BY KADIE TAYLOR
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
CAMP HILL — Get ready for a bloody good time, Southern Prep Academy is hosting a Zombie 5K on Oct. 25 at 4:45 p.m. CDT.
“Come and be ready to participate and have fun, and we will be doing awards at the end for the top three male runners and the top three female runners,” said Director of Institutional Advancement Becca Nelson. “Registration is $30 to run, and if participants register by this Friday, Oct. 10, we can guarantee them a race T-shirt. If they register after Oct. 10, we can’t guarantee them a T-shirt, but we will have some extras on hand. Registration for the race will officially close on Saturday, Oct. 25, at noon, so runners have up until that time and date to sign up.”
While runners trek for 3.1 miles, Nelson said they will pass many scenic views, getting to see a view of campus.
“On our campus, we have about 320 acres, and on those acres, we do have a full 5k course, so that’s three miles, it goes a little bit through campus and then [for] a lot [of the race] it’ll go into our wooded areas,” she said. “Our runners will go through that area. They’ll also pass by our ponds and several different buildings on campus.”
Along with a view of campus, Nelson said runners will engage with some spooky students.
“For this run in particular, we will have some of our students and staff [who] have volunteered to be, what we’re calling, scare actors, but they’re not going to pop out or touch runners or anything like that,” she said. “It’ll be more scenes along the route that’ll just provide that scary element. So those scare actors, as we’re calling them, will be dressed up as zombies. And I don’t want to give too much away, because I want it to be a surprise for the runners, but there’ll be different scenes set up along the trail to just kind of add that Halloween spooky element to the run.”
Nelson said Southern Prep Academy held a successful 5k last March, which sparked the idea for the Zombie 5K, and that these races bring locals to visit their campus.
“It’s not really meant to be a fundraiser,” she said. “We’re calling it a friend-raiser, [which] I guess would be a better word for it. It’s just to kind of get that community involvement and get people out here onto our campus so that they can kind of see the place, and see all that we’ve got going on out here.”
For those racing, Nelson said not to fly off right after they cross the finish line. Southern Prep Academy will have a Harvest Jam for the community to enjoy fall festivities while they rest their legs.
“The Harvest Jam will take place here on the front road, on the very front part of campus,” she said. “We’ll have music from a band called Cutting Edge, they’re local and they’ll be performing. We’ll have a trunk or treat for the little ones, we’ll also be doing hay rides as well and we’ll have some food trucks out here. So we’re encouraging the runners, after they participate in that 5k to just kind of hang out for a little bit, rest, listen to music and get some food from the food trucks. But it’s into more than just our runners, so that the harvest jam is just a community event for anybody that’s interested and looking to participate in any kind of fall festival activity.”
For more information, visit https://runsignup.com/Race/AL/CampHill/SouthernPrepZombie5K.
