putlaw picnic

By Kirk Hanna
Times sports writer
People usually enjoy going to a good picnic. Rawlins high school students definitely enjoy hosting one.
And that’s just what they did Wednesday evening at the Rawlins High School parking lot. Students showed up wearing massive amounts of red, white and black to enjoy loud music, an assortment of grilled meats and to socialize with their classmates.
The event is put on every year by the Rawlins High School Athletic Booster Club. This is the ninth year of its existence and booster club president Mike Mann has been in charge of it for the last three years now.
“We just want to get the community back involved,” Mann said. The community certainly got involved on Wednesday as nearly 250 people showed up to support the Outlaws athletic teams.
Various athletes showed up wearing their respective uniforms, so it was easy to spot them in the crowd. Youngsters were also on hand running around and cutting in line to swipe a few sugary cookies when their parents weren’t watching. Besides the red, white and black school colors, a few students even showed off their homecoming week themed shirts, which were yellow and read, “Do you got it? Outlaw Spirit, catch it!” Many of the teenagers in attendance had caught it, because there were plenty of pupils who painted their faces for the event with the numbers of their favorite football player.
The meat grilling was done by the Rawlins High School Welding Club and they were the easiest to spot through the gallery because their grill was placed high above the crowd on a trailer. Members of the club wore welding gloves to keep their hands from burning and a few of them faced the task of running through the masses with trays of meat, back and forth between the grill and a second trailer containing all of the condiments.
This is the first time the event was held on a Wednesday and you can expect it to happen more in the future. “Usually we did it on Friday before the parade,” Mann said, “but it got too hectic. This was a chance for all of the athletes to come and enjoy the evening with their classmates. I am really surprised with the turnout. It is our biggest crowd ever.”
The biggest hit of the night for the biggest attendance ever was when head football coach Travis Moore and his senior captains got on the microphone and said some crowd-pleasing quotes. Senior linebacker Kody Mann, son of the booster president, said, “this week at practice we worked on a lot of form tackling.” Good thing because coach Moore explained that Friday night’s opponent, Buffalo, has some “pretty big” players. Senior defensive lineman Josh Bergquist took the microphone and added his two cents by saying, “(Buffalo) has good players, but I think we can be better.”
However, the two players who got the biggest roar from the folks on hand were quarterback Colton Hilim and runningback Dennis McCaslin. The latter of which said, “I’m gonna run over ‘em” to which Hilim one upped and said, “I’m gonna punch ‘em out, step on their mouth and keep ‘em down.” Some violent strategies, but if nothing else, the crowd was happy to hear it.
Hopefully for Outlaws fans, when the Bison roll into Rawlins on Friday night, they’ll leave with their first loss of the season and the Rawlins students can then enjoy the final homecoming event of the week, the formal.