LEAP Ropes Course

WHAT IS LEAP?

The Lyon Education & Adventure Program (LEAP) provides outdoor education, recreation, and personal development to Lyon students, faculty, and staff. LEAP began as an academic endeavor headed by Mr. Dennis Wright, a biology professor at Arkansas College. The Outdoor Experience program, as it was called between 1977 – 1995 included courses for credit that required students to get out of the classroom and into the outdoors. Later, in 2004, Dr. Tim Lindblom sponsored a student-run group, known as the Extreme Adventure Squad (XAS), that began taking advantage of outdoor activities around beautiful Batesville, Arkansas, and the surrounding area. Finally, in 2011, Lyon established the LEAP program, which combined academics and activities to expose the Lyon community to the outdoors experience. Scott Dirkson became the first LEAP Director. Today, LEAP has 12 student members and two amazing leaders, WT Taylor and Darrell Shaw.     

OUR PROJECT

LEAP is expanding its ropes course (an obstacle course made up of ropes, wires, and trees and designed to challenge individuals physically, mentally, and emotionally). Currently, our course has 5 low elements and 3 high elements but we plan to add 11 more low elements. While we have already raised some money to fund this project, we’re short of our goal by $1,500. With full funding, we can provide more outdoor activities that Lyon students, faculty, and staff, as well as surrounding communities, can benefit from and enjoy. 

WHY CONTRIBUTE

Lyon College has a beautiful campus. Its handsome academic buildings and residence halls benefit from the beauty in its outdoor landscape – and we want to highlight this. Through LEAP and other programs, Lyon College teaches life lessons such as teamwork, communication, trust-building, and problem-solving. And these activities are led by people who love doing what they do! But we can’t make this possible without some help. So pick one of the perks, named after different low elements we will be installing, and support LEAP!