Support Veterans through COMBAT Color Run April 22

A University of Wyoming student group wants to celebrate military veterans with a community event in April.

UW’s Students Supporting Veterans (SSV) will host the seventh COMBAT Color Fun Run in Laramie Saturday, April 22, at Optimist Park.

COMBAT Color is a 3-mile run or 1.5-mile walk, and game of color tag. Runners are encouraged to wear camouflage and a white shirt to make the color more visible. At the finish line, runners are incited into “battles” with their family and friends. Volunteers along the run route “battle” runners by throwing handfuls of color (cornstarch dyed with food coloring) at runners as they pass. Runners “battle” volunteers by throwing color back.

Pre-registration for the COMBAT Color Fun Run is $30 for adults, $25 for students, $20 for children between ages 10-15 and free for children under 10. Prices will increase after April 1, but registration is available on the day of the event. The entry fee includes an event T-shirt, a pair of sunglasses, a package of color and water.

The event features music and food and drink vendors. Extra color and T-shirts will be available for purchase. Because the event is organized by United States veterans, all proceeds will go to benefit the SSV, the Connor Cloud Scholarship for Veterans and the Meghan Gable Scholarship for Involvement.

Luke Cloud, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at UW, initiated the Wyoming event years ago in Sheridan, when he was the president of the local veteran’s club. Cloud is a Marine Corps veteran. He served from 2001-08, with deployments to Iraq in 2004 and to Africa in 2007. Originally from Alabama, he has been at UW since 2013 and in Wyoming for more than a decade.

Cloud says he struggled after his deployments and was fortunate to find assistance, so he created the event to give back and help other veterans.

“Help us remember our nation’s warriors and all their sacrifices have provided us,” he says.

For more information, click here or contact Cloud here. Invite your friends on Facebook here.