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Date	Author	Title
2021-06-30	Dave Coppock	July 2021 President's Letter
The Rimrunners recently lost one or our charter members who was instrumental in getting the club started as well as the Montana Women’s Run. Dick Lachenmaier passed away a couple weeks ago after battling cancer for several years. Dick and his wife Patricia (Pat) were active Rimrunners in the fall of 1981 and as best as I can recall, hosted our first club race, The 1981 Turkey Run, from their home in Lockwood. Dick’s wife, Pat, was one of the better female runners in the area and consistently won the female category as well as her age group in those early days. Pat had mentioned to Dick that it would be great if there were a separate all-women’s run, since most of the road races back then were dominated by men and generally accounted for three quarters of the field. Pat felt kind of lost in the crowd, Dick suggested an all-women’s run to the club and in 1982, the Montana Women’s Run was born. The Lachenmaiers provided the shirts for those early events; Pat worked for Suttons, who did the screening and Dick worked for a beverage distributor, who provided the shirts. Some of the early Women’s Run shirts sported a beer logo on the front! Dick and Pat were always fixtures of our Wednesday night run and very active members, including board members of the Rimrunners. They often hosted Club runs from their home. The Lachenmaiers moved to the midwest from Billings somewhere around 1990, as I recall. Dick visited Billings a couple years ago as he was still fighting cancer, but was making good progress. With our 40th anniversary of the Yellowstone Rimrunners approaching, I’d like to recognize Dick and Pat as a couple of our founding members who have since moved from Billings, but had contributed so much to the Billings running community. Rest in peace, Dick.

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