The Montgomery County cross country team is striving to turn in another successful season this fall with a new coach.

Bruce Powers, who returned to teaching at the R-II School District last year after a two-year retirement, is taking over coaching duties for Chasity Rodgers, who stepped down after 12 years. Powers is coaching cross country for the first time.

“I’ve done track,” Powers said. “My dad was a cross country coach in his latter years. He was a basketball coach for years, then he inherited a men’s program and started a women’s program. He did that for a number of years. Too bad he’s not still living. I would have been able to talk to him to figure out what he did.”

With the Wildcats returning nine runners, Powers hopes his first year as coach of the Wildcat runners will go smoothly. MCHS brings back returning all-state medalist Jadrian Thurmon and four runners from last year’s girls team that won the Eastern Missouri Conference title for the third year in a row.

“These are really good kids,” Powers said. “They’re good students. They’re fun to be around. They’re highly motivated. It’s nice to be around a bunch of kids who are highly motivated and want to do things.”

Thurmon, Beckham Cothren, Brendan Craven and Maddie West make up the Wildcats’ senior class. Last year, Thurmon earned medals in eight meets, including a 15th-place finish at the Class 3 state meet. Also, Cothren and Craven received medals at the Wellsville-Middletown Invitational and West won a conference championship in the junior varsity division of the EMO meet.

Juniors Katlyn Kolling and Taylor River and sophomore Olivia Spurgeon are the returning runners from last year’s EMO championship girls team. Spurgeon earned all-conference honors in 2023 by placing 14th at the league meet.

Also returning for the boys team are junior Cooper Sellenriek and sophomore Jacob Roesner. Both of them earned medals at the W-M meet last year.

The new runners are freshmen Emma Rodgers and Braydin Finch. Rodgers’ older sister, Malia, won the EMO individual championship and qualified for the state meet last year. Finch is on double duty this fall as he is also playing football for the Wildcats.

Powers teaches eighth-grade history at Montgomery County Middle School. He taught at the R-II district for 34 years before retiring in 2021. He returned to the school district in 2023. Last winter, he was assistant coach of the MCHS girls basketball team.

Powers said after the first week of cross country practice, he finds out that the sport is not an easy one to participate in.

“It’s not a fun sport for a lot of kids,” Powers said. “It’s hard. To me, it’s like high school wrestling. Wrestling is not fun. I used to watch wrestlers work when I was coaching basketball in Poplar Bluff. I would see these kids work. I was like, ‘Good Lord, that’s not fun.’ But the kids love the sport. They like it, especially the ones who stay with it.”

Powers is taking over a program that had an all-state medalist in each of the last five years and had a state qualifier for six straight years. He hopes to continue that success as the new head coach.

“We had a cross country team a long, long time ago here,” Powers said. “But Chasity recreated this program. She rebounded it. Like I told her, ‘This is your program. We’ll take good care of it.’ I hope she wants to come back and (coach again). I’ll be a caretaker for a while.”

The Wildcats begin their season on Aug. 30 at the Mexico Invitational. Thurmon is the defending champion in the boys division.