Credit where credit is due

To the Editor:

The people of Rumford should thank Black Mountain for sponsoring the National Championship Cross Country races. The week long event brought somewhere in the vicinity of 500 people into the Rumford area for one week.

Their lodging spread from Bethel to Peru, Andover, Mexico, Wilton, Dixfield and all stops in between.

The beds in Rumford were full and the restaurants were booming. If we are lucky, the same thing will happen again next year.

For the first time, to my knowledge, Black Mountain got the credit it so richly deserves. The TV channels, including our public access channel 7, newspapers, radio stations, and photographers, every facet of the media was at the mountain to see and report on a truly magnificent affair.

The publicity was first class as was everything else. Much of the credit goes to Craig Zurhorst for insuring that no stone was left unturned when it came to publicity. The papers in particular devoted prime space to its coverage and for that Rumford should be thankful.

The races were scripted down to the most remote detail due to the painstaking effort of the members of the Chisholm Ski Club. The Broomhall brothers along with Paul Jones and Roger Arsenault, and about a hundred volunteers, worked tirelessly to overcome the obstacles created by mother nature. Muriel’s

Kitchen must have served over 500 meals to the volunteers who made it go, at no cost to Rumford taxpayers.

The skiers came from across the nation with a large contingent from Alaska. Most every college in Northern New England had teams entered in the myriad of races from one kilometer sprints to 30 kilometer endurance races. The competitors ranged from high school standouts to post college professionals.

Town officials, including the town manager at least one selectman and three members of the finance committee were present watching the skiers pass under the bridge on the way to the finish line. Many townspeople missed the excitement, probably due to of lack of knowledge. That should not happen again.

When you stop to think that Rumford could have lost it all because of a lack of funding it boggles the mind. For the lack of $51,000 we might have lost our share of something in the vicinity of a million dollars.

I sincerely hope that this experience has convinced the people of Rumford that Black Mountain is second to none (except maybe the papermill) when measuring the real assets of our town.

Thank you Black Mountain. Thank you public media. You have given Rumford something to be proud of.

Bill French,

Rumford