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Brian Railsback plans to pedal his mountain bike from WCU’s Reynolds Hall to Richland Balsam, the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and then back to Cullowhee on Saturday, Sept. 27. All the money raised through the 56-mile pledge ride will go into a scholarship fund that provides tuition assistance to deserving Honors College students.
Railsback’s itinerary calls for him to depart from WCU around 7 a.m. and follow U.S. 74 from Sylva to its intersection with the Blue Ridge Parkway at Balsam, and then head north on the parkway to Richland Balsam, where the parkway reaches 6,053 feet, the highest point along its route in North Carolina and Virginia. He’ll return to WCU along the same route.
Railsback had been planning to undertake a two-day, 110-mile pledge ride from Cullowhee to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the eastern United States, but his planned route is blocked by a parkway construction project between Asheville and Mount Mitchell.
The Honors College scholarship fund reached the $85,000 level earlier this year, which means it has become large enough to be “endowed” – scholarships can be paid out from interest earned, rather than being taken from the fund itself, Railsback said. Once that goal had been achieved, the college set a new goal of reaching the $100,000 level, and started a campaign to seek donations from Honors College alumni. That effort is being led by James Hogan, a 2003 graduate of the Honors College who works as a professional fundraiser.
Recent donations have boosted the fund to $88,000, and Railsback said he is hoping the infusion of money from the alumni campaign, the bike ride and other individual donations will take the fund to the $100,000 mark.
Railsback has undertaken six other pledge rides since 1997 to raise money for the fund, but he said the upcoming effort will his final pedaling-for-pledges effort. “I think we’ve got a good chance to reach the $100,000 mark, and it will be a good way to close out the pledge rides,” he said.
Over the years, more than $40,000 has been raised through the rides for the scholarship fund.
Anyone interested in making a pledge or learning more about the Honors College should call its office at (828) 227-7383.
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Last modified: Monday, Sept. 22, 2008