Two Southeast Missouri State University students are working on forming a new club at Southeast, a snow ski and snowboard club.

Freshmen Dylan Rainbolt, a physics engineering mechanical applications major, and Trevor Fauss, a pre-engineering major, came up with the idea for the club and currently are working on getting the support ready to make the club a player in the Southeast club scene.

Both students come from Park City High School in Park City, Utah, where they were involved in a club and team similar to what they want to start at Southeast.

“We saw there wasn’t a club for snowboarding or anything like that here, so we were like, it would be kind of cool if we could get something like that started up here at SEMO,” Rainbolt said.

Rainbolt and Fauss plan to bring the club on trips up to Hidden Valley Ski Resort in Eureka, Missouri, and Colorado for ski- and snowboard-related trips.

“We want to take two trips, one to Hidden Valley and one to Colorado. Colorado is the dream, but the Hidden Valley is more feasible at this point,” Fauss said.

Copper Mountain in Colorado is the primary choice for a hopeful Colorado trip because the group believes it to be the cheapest and most reasonable option, but they are leaving other options open.

However, the two plan on using the hills of the campus, most notably Cardiac Hill, to bring their passion for skiing and snowboarding directly to the campus instead of being dependent on travel when snow falls in the winter months.

Their first priority is to utilize fundraising opportunities in the coming months to fund their club and any trips they wish to take. The first in mind is a restaurant fundraiser, because they believe it would be the most workable way to get money into the club for them to get started.

Rainbolt and Fauss are going for the fundraising route, as non-educational clubs find it difficult and less likely to receive money from the university or Student Government Association.

“We’re going to try to get money from Student Government, but the fundraisers will be our own thing that we’re coming up with,” Rainbolt said.

They started out with printing flyers and posting them all around the Southeast’s campus to draw attention to their club, but mostly to get their names out there for the club to get off the ground.

The pair utilized Southeast’s new work sync program, OrgSync, to get the club registered and also worked on the club’s constitution for it to become official.

So far, the club has 17 people who have contacted Rainbolt and Fauss interested in the club. A November group meeting has been planned to begin the process of discussing objectives and goals with interested members.

Most interested members are experienced in skiing or snowboarding, but they have had students with no prior experience contact them showing interest in learning or getting involved.

Fauss says the club is open for anyone to join, from beginner to professional, and both him and Rainbolt said they would be willing to help out beginners to get a grasp of skiing or snowboarding.

“It’s open for anybody, it’s not experts only, it’s for beginners who want to learn how to snowboard and things like that,” Rainbolt said.

As freshmen at Southeast, Rainbolt and Fauss hope to grow the club, make it successful and eventually have the club venture out west to prime skiing and snowboarding spots.

For more information or to get involved in the club, students can contact Dylan Rainbolt at (618) 979-4701 or dlrainbolt1s@semo.edu and Trevor Fauss at (618) 214-6403 or tcfauss1s@semo.edu.