Laps, Laughs & Legacy: Inside the Hap Rapp Track Meet

In this episode of On the Road with Paul Ward, we’re joined by Dave Drumright of the Camarillo Rotary Club to explore the long-standing tradition of the Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet. Dave shares the inspiring story behind this unique community event, detailing how it has grown from its humble beginnings into a much-anticipated annual gathering that brings together athletes of all ages and skill levels. From the wide range of track and field events to the enthusiastic Rotarian volunteers who make it all happen, the meet stands as a shining example of community spirit and service.

Dave also dives into his personal involvement over the years and highlights what makes this event so special—including the fact that it’s the only known track meet hosted by a Rotary club. He offers his resources for other clubs or communities interested in starting similar events and explains how the Camarillo Rotary Club funds this free event through creative fundraising efforts. Whether you're a local parent, a fellow Rotarian, or simply a fan of feel-good community stories, you won’t want to miss this episode.

 

Watch the full episode HERE

 

What you’ll learn in this episode:

0:00 Introduction to On the Road and to our guest, Dave Drumright of the Camarillo Rotary and a special thanks to our sponsor: Opus Escrow

0:53 What is the Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet?

1:38 Just how much the Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet has grown since its inception

2:18 Local Rotarians volunteer to help run the event

3:10 The track & field events held at the meet

5:03 The winners and their awards

5:48 The range of ages and skill level of the participants

6:55 Dave Drumright’s involvement in the Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet over the years

7:39 The Camarillo Rotary Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet is the only known track & field event held by any Rotary club, Dave Drumright offers other clubs the information to help start their own track & field event

8:15 Dave’s advice on starting a sporting event like the Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet

8:44 The free event is paid for by the Camarillo Rotary Club’s sale of advertising space and event t-shirts

10:00 This year’s event date and time is shared by Dave

10:45 How to sign up for this year’s Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet

Related Episodes: Racing Through Community Spirit: The Legacy of The Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet 

Roses and Rotary: The Road to the Rose Parade Behind the Blooms

Empowering Tomorrow’s Leaders: Inside the YES! Youth Empowerment Summit with 

Mary Lingua

 

2025 Hap Rapp Memorial Track Meet: Camarillo Rotary Foundation Saturday, May 17, 2025 8:00AM - 4:30PM Adolfo Camarillo High School 4660 Mission Oaks Blvd. Camarillo, CA  93012

 

Contact Paul Ward: 805-479-5004 [e-mail]

 

Have ideas for future episodes? We'd love to answer your questions - leave a comment! For any home buying or home selling needs in the Ventura County area of California, please reach out to [e-mail] or visit www.HomeAndRanchTeam.com

A special THANK YOU to our sponsor, OPUS ESCROW! Farm Talk with Paul Ward would not be possible without the support of our sponsor Opus Escrow. Supporting our sponsor ensures Farm Talk can provide listeners with the best possible episodes.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hey friends, it's Paul Ward here, andwelcome to another On the Road. Well,
maybe you were involved in schoolsports, track and field back in the day,
or maybe you have a studentthat's involved in sports today.
Our next guest is very activeand hosts a one day track
and field event for his local rotaryclub. That's become quite the sensation.

(00:25):
Dave Drumright with the CamarilloRotary Club. Welcome to On the Road.
Thank you Paul for havingme. I appreciate it.
Absolutely. And we want to thankour sponsor, Opus Escrow. Oh,
this is called the Hap Rapp MemorialTrack Meet. Dave, I have to ask,
what is a, what is a hat wrap.
? That's a great question.I get that all the time.

(00:47):
And the track meet began in 1960when the club thought that there
was, there should be a localcommunity event for little kids. And,
and it started off small.
And then in 1988 there wasa gentleman actually named
Hap Rapp that was amember of our rotary club,
and he participated in the,

(01:09):
the club event and he did so muchfor the tourna ment and for the,
for the track meet that we decidedto name the track meet after him.
So his name is actuallyhalf, believe it or not.
Interesting. Yeah. So,
so you mentioned that this started smalland it's grown and I think it's grown

(01:29):
quite tremendously, right? I mean,
you have literally hundreds ofmiddle schoolers that participate.
Yes, it's most,
the predominant schools are PleasantValley School District in Camarillo.
And then we opened it up to a couple ofschools in the Somas area because they
were un under reported andneeded some more attention.

(01:50):
And so we thought we'd openit up to Somas kids as well.
And it started off with 12schools and now it's up to 15
schools. And last yearwe had over 500 kids,
so it was probably the bestyear ever last year. Oh.
That's, that, that isincredible. 500 kids. And so you,
you corral your, your fellow Rotarians to,

(02:13):
to help you out with this overthe course of what? A few months.
I do. It actually starts in December,
the year before the track meet,
which is always held the thirdweek of May 3rd, Saturday of May.
So we don't overlap with Mother's Dayand the Strawberry Festival in Oxnard.
And so we,

(02:36):
we always get volunteers from the club.
There's probably 15 to 30 Rotarians thatparticipate in the club and they are
the judges for each of the events.
And then there's alsothe schools request and
get volunteers for us as well.
And so we get a lot of volunteers fromthe schools and so that helps, you know,

(02:57):
parents and coaches and, andso that always helps too.
So we have about 60 volunteers.
No, that's great. So what, what eventsare in involved, I imagine the, the,
the long jump and, and what else?
Yes, they we start off the,
the meet in the morning at eighto'clock with the flag salute and then
singing of the national anthem.

(03:19):
And it's a local person who always singsthe national anthem This year it's a
person from Camarillo High School who'sgonna be singing the national anthem and
the local Cub Scouts present the colors.
And the event startswith the 1600 meters for
the older kids.
And then it gets into thelong jump and track and,

(03:40):
and high jump events for the littlekids. So they're going on simultaneously.
And then after they complete their events,
the boys and girls, you know, theystagger. So we'll swap and then the,
the boys will do the long jump.
The girls will do the high jump and thenthe girls will do the long jump and the
boys will do the high jump.
And we go from fourth grade througheighth grade for all of those events.

(04:04):
And then after the long jump of high jump,
there's the shot put forthe middle school kids,
and then we start the dashesaround 10 o'clock. And those are,
those are crazy.
There's a lot of excitement in thestands and a lot of excitement on the,
on the track.
And so the dashes commence and they'llrun for a couple of hours 'cause we

(04:26):
do the preliminaries and thefinals mm-hmm .
And after that we do the 400 meters.
And then the 800 andafter that is the relays,
which is absolute chaos.
'cause If you can imagine 15 schoolswith four kids per event with
fourth graders through eighth gradersrunning a relay. So it's all organized,

(04:48):
but it's organized chaos for sure.
And then each school in the relay iscompeting against as a team or competing
against the other schools?
That's correct.
And then do the winners like first,second, third get, get a prize,
get a trophy? Is it, arethere, are there medals? Yes.
Through every event. Forevery single event we offer,

(05:10):
we have ribbons for firstplace through fifth place.
And at the end of the day, well,
we keep track of the scores and who winsthe events in second and third and they
get points for each of theirplacements in each event.
And at the end of the day,
we give a trophy for each grade and
category for the overall winner. Thenthe trophy's about three feet tall.

(05:33):
Sometimes they're tallerthan the kids themselves.
. So Dave, are thesetrack and field stars at their,
at their various schools?
Are these kids that are thinkingabout going to track and field?
What's kind of the makeupof the, of the participants?
There are some who also participate inthe local Cosmos track team, which is a,

(05:54):
a community wide track team.And there are many, most,
I would say that can hardly spellthe word track and have never done
track and field in their lives. However,
they thought it might be fun and it gets,
it gets promoted at the school level andthen they come out and this is usually
the first exposure that theyhave to track and field in their

(06:18):
community and in their lives.And a lot of 'em love it.
And they can't wait todo it the following year.
And a few of 'em don't really like it.And the, and they opt out the next year.
But we always fill itup with a bunch of kids.
Some kids we've heard that we'vehad reports that have actually
gone on to universities andcolleges and participated

(06:40):
in the track teams and even gottenscholarships in track and field.
And so those are great stories to hear.
And they've even mentioned that theygot their start at the hap wrap memorial
track.
That's, that's awesome. So howdid, how did you get involved?
Well, I've been inRotary for over 25 years.
And in the Rotary Club we do alot of community projects and

(07:04):
this was one of 'em,
and I always liked track and field'cause I did that in high school and I
thought, well, you know, I'll help out.
So I helped out as a volunteer earlyand then there was a need for a
change at leadership in,on the for the track meet.
And I said, well, I'll do it.
And so I took over the track meetand that was 15 years ago. Wow.

(07:28):
So it's been a good run and it'salways a good time and it's a lot of
organization, but weget it done and it's a,
a good time for the kids andthat's what it's all about.
Is this the only Rotary Club,
the Camarillo Rotary Club that youknow of that's doing a track meet?
I don't know of any other Rotary clubthat's, you know, involved in track.

(07:48):
It's,
and I have all the documentation that'sneeded to set up a track meet and I've
sent it to several rotaryclubs in different areas to see if they have interest
in setting something uplike this in the community.
And no one's ever done it yet.So I think we're the only ones.
What would you say would be yourbiggest piece of advice to other,
other Rotary clubs, otherservice organizations that want to start a, you know,

(08:12):
track meet or just a kind ofa sporting event in general?
Well,
I would say to be organized and makesure that you ize and cross your T's and
anticipate issues before they happen. And
be committed to it not just forone year, but for several years.
And then it can become a tradition.

(08:33):
Sure. Is it, is it expensive? I mean,you've got 500 kids and I imagine,
you know, probably an equal numberof parents in the stand. I mean,
is there a cost to throwingan event like this?
Well, there's no charge for volunteersand there's no charge for participants.
The Rotary Club does this as acommunity service project for the,
the town mm-hmm . Andthere's no, no cost for participants.

(08:56):
However the Rotary Clubincurs a few costs.
We do have a food booth thata lady brings in a taco truck
and she'll be selling tacos, butthat doesn't cost us anything.
We do pay for trophies and ribbons andthe rental of the facilities at the
Camarillo High School stadium.And so that costs us a little bit,

(09:17):
but we also make up forthat in our program.
So our program we sell advertisingin our program to our Rotary Club
members, and so they always step up.
Then we also have t-shirts like I'mwearing today and on the back we sell
advertising on the backof each of the T-shirts.
And then we sell the t-shirtsfor 10 or 12 bucks every year.

(09:38):
And it's not oblig obligatory,
but a lot of people dobuy those t-shirts. And I,
I know I've got a collections for thelast 10 years my t-shirts and I wear 'em
all the time and people ask me, what'sthat? So, right. It's kind of fun.
Nice. Keep, keep it affordable.$12. That's, that's a good price.
Yeah.
. So when is the event for 2025?

(10:00):
This year it'll be May 17th,
starts at eight o'clock sharp withall the events and it'll last all day.
And we usually get out about,out of there, about four o'clock,
four 30 with the relays at the end.
And we give the awardsright before the relays,
so the trophy recipients receive theirtrophies and then we'd run the relays and
then it's all over. And then thevolunteers step up and we put together,

(10:23):
put all the canopies away and allthe podiums and the high jump pits,
and we take 'em back to the,
the schools that we borrowed them fromand take everything back to storage and
then we wrap up the, the day.
Wonderful. And for folks that are local,for parents that might be watching,
you know, in Ventura County, California,how would, how would they sign their,
their student up if they're interested?

(10:45):
They sign up through their schools.
So each of the schools in the PleasantValley School District has a team.
And unless they're in Soma andthose two have teams as well,
and they sign up through their schoolsand it's limited to the local Camarillo
area at this time, who knows,someday they, it might expand.

(11:06):
I've had some people approach me fromdifferent schools in the San Fernando
Valley and in Ventura and Oxnard,
but at this time it's just a pleasantValley school district and so was schools.
Wow. I never knew that there was such ademand. I mean, for this type of event.
, I didn't either., but I'm glad. It's great.
It's awesome. Well, Dave Drumm rightwith the Camarillo Rotary Club.

(11:29):
Thank you so much for beingour guest on the road.
Thank you very much, Paul.
It was nice to see you againand I'll talk to you soon.