Hive to Pride 5K Fun Run May 3

Run, walk, eat and win at the Hive to Pride 5K Fun Run May 3, starting at 1 p.m. This event is a scholarship fundraiser for a Custer High School graduate who previously attended Hermosa School, presented by Hermosa School’s eighth-grade leadership class.  
“In the leadership class,” eighth grader Brianna Anderson said, “we focus on giving back to our community and making fundraisers. One of our fundraisers was the haunted house food drive, where we had a haunted house, and people brought a can of food.” 
“When we’re in class, we like to brainstorm ideas to give back to our community, our teachers, our students and our staff. One of the ideas we had while we were brainstorming was our 5K Fun Run for a scholarship,” Anderson continued. 
Anderson said they decided on a 5K because their teacher, Josephine Weekley, enjoys running and thought it would work well as a fundraiser. 
“We all voted if we wanted to do it, and we all said we wanted to. We thought of all of the things we needed for a race, so we emailed, we called, we contacted a whole bunch of companies, like Scheels and the Runners Company, to see if they wanted to donate door prizes, money, signs and anything like that. We just slowly started piecing it together,” said Anderson. 
Part of this included getting the approval of the Custer School District Board of Education and the Hermosa Town Board, which Anderson said was a little intimidating. 
Anderson’s favorite part was designing the pennant lines for the end of the race. 
“We’re going to have a whole bunch of the little kids make their own little triangles in each class. That’s my favorite part. The part that’s been kind of challenging is finding out everything that we need and the prices for them,” said Anderson, although the phone calls were admittedly a little nerve-wracking. 
The race will start at the school, head down 5th Street, take a left on Whitney Street, head to 2nd Street and onto Gumbo Lily Lane, where participants will turn around and take Vilas Street back to the school. Pets are welcome in the race as well. 
There will be a check-in station at the beginning of the race. A second station will have bananas, water and pup cups, “just so they have a little fuel for the rest of it.” There is also a halfway mark station where participants can either stop or turn around to finish the race. 
Several food trucks are joining the festivities as well, and the eighth-grade leadership class is organizing a table of baked goods donated by students and teachers, which will be available with a free-will offering. 
Registration forms were created by Weekley and approved by the eighth graders. Participants can either register via a Google form online or in person the day of the race. Posters can be found on the school’s social media pages and newsletter. The cost is $20 for adults, $10 for students and a maximum of $50 per family. 
Participants can also enter to win door prizes, which will be announced at the end of the race. 
“The money goes to the scholarships, so we thought that we’d not do super cheap but not super expensive. We got in the middle, and we all came up and pitched in our ideas,” said Anderson. 
Thanks to generous sponsors like the Black Hills Runners Club and Dakota Guardianship, all of the event costs are covered. Thus, all the funds the event raises will go toward scholarships. 
“We thought that since college is really expensive that people that go to Custer that used to go to Hermosa deserved a little give back because they gave a lot to our school,” said Anderson. “So we thought that we would give back to our community and the students that came here.” 
To be eligible, seniors have to fill out a form, be alumni of Hermosa School for at least one academic year and have plans to attend a post-secondary institution. They will also write an essay about what it means to grow up in a rural community, and what Hermosa meant to them. 
The eighth-grade leadership class will read the anonymous essays and select their favorite. The award amount and number of recipients will depend on how much is raised during the 5K Fun Run. Finally, the scholarship will be presented to a 2026 Custer High School graduate. 
Eligible seniors were emailed a link to the online scholarship application form.