Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk Line 10-22-2026: Eric Valdez & the SVCC Freedom 5K

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Talk Line 10-22-2026: Eric Valdez & the SVCC Freedom 5K · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: 8.35, and as promised, it's your second dose of TalkLine.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Our good friends from Sauk Valley Community College stopping in
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the studio. Eric Valdez here to tell us all about
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: an upcoming important event. Sir, how are you today?
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: I'm doing fantastic.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: How are you? I'm great, man. It's controlled weather, good music,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and conversation in the booth for me. Sounds like a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: good day.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Every day's a good day.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: But I'm talking, of course, about the upcoming Freedom 5K.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Let us know what's going on.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: So this would be our seventh Freedom 5K at Sauk
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Valley Community College. It will be hosted November 14th, 2026
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: at Sauk. We did have a little break with COVID,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: but we're back up and running and ready to go. Awesome.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm known for not wanting to run for anything
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: much less than food. I'll blame it on cowboy boots
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and we'll just say it's that. But I understand walkers
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: are welcome to this because this is supporting a good cause.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Yes. So runners, walkers, if you just want to come
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: out just to support a family member, a fellow veteran,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: someone who's participating in the run, please feel free to
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: do so. All our proceeds, 100% of the money we raise,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Go right back to the Student Veteran Organization to help
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: our student veterans in need.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And I understand if they sign up by November 1st
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: or before, they're going to score a shirt.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. So if they register by November 1st, they get
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: their free Freedom 5K t-shirt, which I'm wearing mine.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Super cool.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Loving that. This year, we're going to have a bright
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: red shirt with yellow lettering for students. The Marines colors. Awesome.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: That's what we're going with this year.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Super cool.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So you said this is the seventh year?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Awesome. God, I would say who came up with the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: idea for running, but veterans.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Definitely wasn't me.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: But no, I absolutely love this. And I got to
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: imagine you guys have seen this grow over the years.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Every year, we try so hard just to
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: try to tweak it a little bit here and there,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: see what we can do to... try and raise as
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: much money as possible, but definitely to give back to
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the community and to just make it a better experience overall.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Because everything we do is in-house. Our registration is through
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: our foundation office. Our marketing team does all the marketing.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: The only thing that we don't do is t-shirts. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Khalil's and Dixon makes our t-shirts. We order them. But
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: everything else that we get coming in, we pay for
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: our t-shirts. Everything else goes right back to the Student
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Veteran Organization.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: That's wonderful. I mean, being able to give these student veterans,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you know, just a leg up because it's already, you know,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: it can already be a challenge. It's certainly a sacrifice.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So being able to make this a little bit easier
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: on them and their families has to go a long way,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: especially when, you know, you've already got the burden of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: studies and trying to keep focused on that. And then
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you got your family and the military aspect of it,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: whether you're still in or maybe you'd been out. So
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this is just one more way to kind of help
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: ease things for them.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And as a veteran myself, I understand
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: some of those struggles, especially being active duty, getting out
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and coming back into the civilian world, trying to go
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: back to school. And like you said, just trying to readjust,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: going back to school, going back to family, friends, your
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: studies and work and trying to manage everything. It gets
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: overwhelming really quickly, especially just being out for so long.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I love that you guys are always thinking of
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: ways to help. This is a really cool way.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: How can folks sign up now?
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: So they can just go to SVCC forward slash Freedom
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: 5K or they can go on to our Facebook page,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: SVCC Freedom 5K. And it's through, like I said, our
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: foundation office. They can register. So, yeah, the more the merrier.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And I know November 1st is the deadline for the t-shirt,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: but do they have a little extra time if maybe
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they didn't get by then? I've done that scatterbrain, and
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: then I'm like, oh, can I still get a ticket?
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I had to do that at the Rock Falls Chamber yesterday.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Rock Falls Chamber.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: They can still register all the way up until race day.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: So we will have laptops there for participants to register.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: There's no additional fee to register after that November 1st deadline.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: We just can't guarantee a free t-shirt. We can't order
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: any extras. We've tried to in the past. It just
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: got too expensive. So we're just trying to minimize how
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: much we spend.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: No, it's all about planning. You can't promise something when
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: things take time. And no, that's the best way to
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: do it. But the good news is if, like me,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you had good intentions to go get your t-shirt. You forgot,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: but you still want to make their A. You can
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: do it all the way up to race day, which
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: is awesome. So just, again, get out there. If you're
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: like me, you don't like running, you can walk. It's
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: really just all about supporting these veterans.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially, too, so the race will start at
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: 9 a.m. We will do the national anthem at 8.50, 8.55,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and then we'll start the race. But the course itself
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: is on Sauk Valley. Community College's campus, and it's a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: beautiful campus. Oh, yes. It just works out perfect because
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: the race starts at the flagpole. They will do one
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: giant loop around the entire campus so they get to
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: really see it. And the weather, hopefully, has been beautiful
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: every year. And it's a mixture of grass and gravel,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: so it's a little bit 50-50 bowl. So every runner
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: gets to get a little taste of what they're comfortable with.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: And like I said, they run out to Route 2.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: They come out. They run along the river. They come back.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: And then we finish there right there at the 9-11 Memorial.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: And what people need to understand, everything is volunteer. We
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: do everything in-house. We have impact students that are volunteer
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: to get their impact hours. We have SOC scholars to volunteer.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: We have a lot of the SOC Valley employees that
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: are out there to help with timing, registration, just make
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: sure everything's running really smoothly. And a big thing this year,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: we used to do medals, but one of our runners,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: he was generous enough to paint handcrafted wood medals that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: we're going to use this year. I love that. Wooden
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: awards that we're super excited about, and it just really
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: cut back on the cost, and he was generous enough
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: to do that this year. I love that.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I hope more places can find that. I've only ever
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: heard of one other thing that was super cool like that.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I went to a venue called Codfish Hollow for Music,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and it's out of this old wooden barn that they
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: had redone. But for, like, the larger names that would
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: come through, the people, they had a guy who would
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: make these banners, like the old knight banners that hang
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: from the rafters of the barn of, like, the big
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: act names that would come.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And I was like, why do.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: So many people do all this other stuff when something
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: like this is cool? So I love that you guys
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: have this. I hope maybe this will be the new
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: tradition for the awards.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: We'll see. I'm really, really hoping so. Last year I
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: asked everybody do they like the awards because it's, It's
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: very time-consuming. Oh, sure. Because like I said, we're just
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: doing it all in-house. We have runners come through. They
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: rip off their bib tab. They give it to an
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: impact student or a SOC scholar student or just a volunteer.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: They take it inside, and then they're manually just putting
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: in these numbers. We've had some issues, and people say, hey,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: we still love the race, but we still love the
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: competitiveness of it. Right, yeah. Can we still do the
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: awards and the timing? Please. And I said, yes. Okay,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: we can. I said, we might need to cut back
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: on medals and awards. this veteran, this participant in Sunden,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: he jumped in, he said, hey, I'd like to do
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: that for the 5k. And we said, thank you so much.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: We appreciate it.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: How do you like that? A veteran event and a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: veteran stepping in to help everybody else as part of
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the event. I absolutely love that, Eric. Super cool. I
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: can't wait to see how this expands over the years.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Glad to hear, I like hearing this with the Sauk campus.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: If you have not been out to Sauk, you know,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in the last year or so, just And, you know,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: so much work has gone down there to make everything
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: so beautiful. Going by the river this kind of year
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: is like the most picturesque moment that you could be
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: out on the campus. So this is really cool.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. And I can't say enough how excited we are.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: And we appreciate everyone that's been volunteering. And just that's
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: been a big part of what I do at Salk
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: as the financial aid advisor and coordinator of veteran services.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I help all the vets. I'm still busy with everything,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: but still taking time to help with the 5K and
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: just the community as a whole stepping up. I get
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: emails all the time. Hey, I'm with this place. How
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: can we help? How can we help? What can we do?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: What can we do? And it's just, it's really fantastic.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And I just appreciate it so much.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Well, we appreciate you all putting on this event, thinking
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of these things and the veterans. As someone who is
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a veteran, I thank you for it. Wow, that came
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: out wrong. I'm not a veteran. My sentence structure was
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: getting jumbled up. I want to thank you for your service, sir.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Nobody get that mixed up. I am not a veteran
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of anything but the food plate. Once again, if people
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: want to sign up, what's the best way to do it?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Through our Facebook page or through the Stock Valley page,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: you can just go to svcc.edu forward slash freedom5k. or Facebook, SVCC,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Freedom 5K, and you can find us there and register
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: online as well. And then you can also stay up
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: to date on what we've got going on as well. Absolutely.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Get on there, sign up, get your T-shirt, get out there,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: support this great cause. Eric, thank you so much for
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: coming on the show, sharing the information, and, of course,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: all the hard work you and everyone does over at
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: the SVCC. We truly appreciate it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Thank you, and I appreciate you having us.