The Chadron State Foundation celebrated the end of its annual fall fund campaign last night with a victory party that revealed $177,370 has come in or been pledge so far.

College development officer Leslie Bargen headed up this year’s drive. She says the total so far is just about what was expected by now, but emphasizes the final total will be much higher as donations and pledges will continue to come in through the end of the school year.

Bargen says this year’s theme…Because of You…emphasized that community support makes the college strong, and she believes the amount of money raised and the eagerness of those contacted to contribute shows just how deep that support is.

The active phase of the effort ended on Halloween, but Bargen says contributions will continue to come in many more months.

The Chadron State Foundation fall campaign uses a good-natured competitions between teams of local leaders and college faculty and staff.

The winning campus team this year was captained by CSC Director of Communications Justin Haag and included Con Marshall, Alex Helmbrecht, Dewayne Gimeson, Craig Conway and Keith Crofutt. Crofutt accumulated the most total points on the campus side of the competition.

The winning community team was headed up by Russ Bohnenkamp of Chadron Community Hospital…whose teammates were his boss – hospital administrator Harold Krueger, Kimberly Ouderkirk, Bobby Griese, Jordan Raben, and Tricia Thayer. Misty Reid was the top community individual point-getter.

Serving as the chairs of the community teams this year were Tina McLain of Chadron Community Recreation and Jason Carnahan, a loan officer at Security First Bank in Chadron.

The campus team leaders are faculty member Dr Donna Ritzen and Leslie Bargen’s husband, men’s basketball coach Brent Bargen. Chairs serve two year, and this was the second year for both McLain and Ritzen.