Rim Rock Farm

By Sarah Timmons

Rim Rock Farm, under private ownership, is the location for all of Lawrence’s cross-country meets. Whether it’s Free State High School or Lawrence High School or Kansas University, they all use it.

Rim Rock has been called one of the toughest cross-country courses in the country. What makes Rim Rock a challenging courses is the terrain. It goes up hill and downhill and all over. It doesn’t have any sharp turns because that’s too difficult for the runners. The course is also beautiful. It has seven ponds and contains two covered bridges. Seven steel eight-foot silhouettes of famous runners are scattered throughout the course, appearing from a distance to be Billy Mills, a 1964 Olympic Gold Medallist; Al Frame, a 1955 NCAA champion; John Lawson, a 1965 NCAA champion; Herb Semper, a 1950 NCAA champion; Wes Santee, a 1953 NCAA champion; Glenn Cunningham, a two-time NCAA champion; and Jim Ryun, a three-time world record holder.

The man who owns it is former Kansas University track coach Bob Timmons. Timmons and some other people work on improving the courses and keeping it nice about seven and a half months to eight months out of the year. Timmons designed the courses when he bought the land.

The cross-country meets weren’t always held at Rim Rock Farm. They were originally held on the west campus of KU. They held the 1966 and the 1965 Nationals there. It was later ruined by people going on the course with dirt bikes and different things like that. Cross-country events were then moved to the Lawrence Country Club, but golf became popular and the meets needed to be held somewhere else. They were held at Lone Star Lake south of Lawrence for awhile but coordinators decided it wasn’t a good place. After Timmons bought the land North of Lawrence between McClouth and Lawrence, he decided that he would create a new cross-country course in 1980. That’s how Rim Rock Farm came about.

 Credits

• Interview with Bob Timmons 5/14/01
• 1998 NCAA cross-country Championship magazine 1998 NCAA Divisions 1 and 2, Nov. 23, 1998.
• "Rim Rock Farm will present runners stiff test at meet," Journal World, unknown date, 1 PG.

Project in Photo Explorations; John Mohn, instructor;May 2001.