Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosFor a Sisters coach, a trip to Nepal
By Beau Eastes / The Bulletin
Published: December 29. 2008 4:00AM PSTRand Runco has been a teacher for most of his adult life.
A physical education and outdoor education teacher at Sisters High School for the past 18 years, Runco has also taught basketball for the better part of two decades. The head boys coach at Sisters since 1998, Runco has taken the Outlaws to the state playoffs four times, their most recent appearance coming last season, when Sisters finished 20-6.
This week, though, Runco begins taking on an entirely different type of teaching assignment.
With the blessing of the Sisters School District, Runco, 42, will take a two-month leave of absence this winter to help run a teacher-training program for young women in the country of Nepal in south Asia. Runco, who has been making summer treks to Nepal for the past nine years, has been helping impoverished areas in the country for the past several years after he and fellow Sisters High teacher Mark LaMont established the nonprofit Ten Friends Project.
In addition to helping provide rural Nepalese villages with portable stretchers, water filters and improved sanitation, Ten Friends — which was named after Runco, LaMont, and eight of their buddies who joined the two Sisters teachers in Nepal one summer — has partnered with the Nepal Bhotia Education Community to help women in isolated areas of Nepal become teachers themselves.
“The goal is for each area to have its own teachers,” says Runco.
“Most of the teachers come from Kathmandu,” says Runco, referring to Nepal’s capital and largest city, with a population of some 700,000. “That’s a totally different culture.”
Runco’s relationship with the Himalaya Mountain country began when he was 10.
“My older brother went to Nepal and brought back pictures,” Runco says about his introduction to Nepal. “I was fired up to go.”
In 2001, Runco finally made it to the country he had dreamed about since his childhood. A group of students from Bend and Redmond were planning a trip to Nepal when a chaperon backed out at the last minute. Runco filled in, and a love affair began.
“I fell in love with it,” Runco says about his first trip to Nepal. “I can’t even tell you.”
Runco returned to Nepal the next several years and got involved in an array of service projects. After seeing an injured climber carried down the mountains in a basket, Runco came back to Central Oregon and helped design an easy-to-move medical stretcher for use in the Himalayas.
“We’d go over in the summer after basketball (season) for six or seven weeks and deliver these stretchers to the villages,” Runco says. “Then my buddy Mark LaMont came over and we went to a couple of children’s homes and orphanages and were struck by their living situations.”
Ten Friends was born, and soon Runco and LaMont were raising money to install water filters in orphanages and to build more sanitary wells and community bathrooms.
The more time Runco and LaMont spent in Nepal, the more relationships they built, which led to their most recent — and possibly most important — project.
“Our Nepalese friends began talking about the need for better education,” Runco says. “They were frustrated with their teachers. Some (teachers) would come (to the villages) only half the time. Others had problems with alcohol.
“We asked what they need and they said they needed their own teachers. People from outside the village don’t understand the culture, the religion, the crops they grow.”
Despite all their progress, Runco and LaMont felt like they were just scratching the surface with their summer visits. To help nurture the projects of Ten Friends, LaMont took all of last year off from teaching and spent his time in Nepal.
“It was very slow to implement progress in the summer,” Runco says. “With Mark over there last year, they made huge progress.”
Seeing the steps Ten Friends took with LaMont abroad last year, Runco says he felt like he couldn’t just wait until the summer to help out either. But the thought of missing basketball season was painful.
“I really struggled with the decision,” Runco says. “I love hoops. I think the last time I wasn’t involved in a basketball season was the third grade.
“I went to the administration, (Sisters principal) Bob Macauley and (athletic director) Mary Flande and said, ‘What do you think about a potential sabbatical?’ They said, ‘Great.’ ”
Jake Rothauge, who played point guard for Runco at Sisters High a decade ago, has taken over as coach of the Outlaws for the 2008-09 season.
“It worked out perfect,” Runco says about Rothauge guiding the varsity program this season. “Leaving hoops, I had to think deep for that one. But leaving it (in Rothauge’s) hands, I felt pretty good about it.”
So this Wednesday, Runco will travel by plane into the northeastern part of Nepal. At times Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain, will be less than 60 miles away. He says that a few of the most remote villages he will visit are accessible only by foot, some a 10-day walk from where he will be dropped off.
Runco is prepared for it all. He’s been itching to return to Nepal since his last visit, energized by LaMont’s success over the previous year. Their nonprofit has the chance to improve not just the lives of the girls it is trying to educate, but entire villages.
But once a coach, always a coach.
“What’s going to drive me crazy is keeping track of hoops,” Runco says. “We’ve got the biggest team in school history. … I hope all goes well and the Outlaws keep winning. I’ll be back in March; I hope to watch them at (the Class 4A state tournament at Oregon State University’s) Gill Coliseum.”
Beau Eastes can be reached at 541-383-0305 or at beastes@bendbulletin.com.
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