This semester, Elizabethtown College students will have a new club to join, called Etown Shreds. Rachel Lacek, a senior mechanical engineering major, recently founded the skiing and snowboarding club on campus.
Lacek transferred to Elizabethtown from Wilkes University, where she cultivated her love of snowboarding with her friends in the engineering program. When she transferred junior year, she used her love of snowboarding to make friends. “When I came here, I didn’t know of anyone that snowboarded, and I still don’t have a car, so I thought that this could be a cool way to get a group,” Lacek said. Lacek then formed the idea at the beginning of this semester. Because she does not have a car on campus, a club sounded like a great idea because of the access to the schools vans. She also spoke about the club’s being given a budget. “I know it is an expensive sport, but just offsetting the cost even for transportation helps,” Lacek said. “I know the people that are into skiing or snowboarding are also very passionate about it, so any little thing can help.” Lacek, who serves as the club’s president, said that the club is open to anyone, but she assumes it will target people who have their own equipment because of how expensive the sport can be.
She set up a table at the Activities Fair to get the word out and received approximately 25 signatures before the fair got rained out. So far, there has been no official club meeting. The officers have been meeting to discuss the organization of the club, future plans and T-shirt designs, which they will be selling at Homecoming. Lacek is hoping for at least one or two meetings before the end of the semester to plan trips and reserve Etown vans. “We’ll definitely want input from other people’s ideas of where they want to go or how they want things,” Lacek said. “Nothing is set in stone. I’m open to anything; I’m new to this.” The season is very short, and winter and spring breaks do not help that, so Lacek has already started planning. Depending on each resort’s cost and deals for students, Lacek wants to do one Wednesday or weekend trip per week. Another benefit of the club is that bigger groups of people get better deals. Lacek is also planning on putting together an email list for kids to go skiing or snowboarding on snow days.
Soccer Coach Skip Roderick will be the advisor to the club. In addition to coaching, he also teaches the skiing class at the College. Lacek spoke of her frustrations with the lack of knowledge about the skiing class, which you can take for zero to one credit. “No one knew about it,” Lacek said. “That was another reason to start the club. I improved a lot even though I thought I didn’t need lessons. You can always improve.” According to Lacek, the ski class always took trips to Roundtop Mountain Resort in Lewisberry, so the club is looking to broaden its horizons at other Pennsylvanian venues like Liberty Mountain Resort in Fairfield, Whitetail Resort in Mercersburg and Bear Creek Mountain Resort & Conference Center in Macungie.
A friend of Lacek’s, sophomore Austin Hooper, is looking forward to the new club. “I saw this as the perfect opportunity to connect with my fellow boarders at Etown and go out on the slopes and just have a good time,” Hooper said. Hooper is also excited about the convenience of being connected with fellow snowboarders. “The biggest issue I always face is finding people to go with and getting a ride to the slopes,” he said. “Being in the club means I’ll have people to ride with and have days set aside for riding.”
Lacek is joined by junior Wayne Gross as vice president, sophomore Rachel Brubaker as secretary, sophomore Mary Ludwig as treasurer and sophomore Rachel LaBatt as the club’s representative.