by Fran Gough
So where did the LVRR get its start? It began back in the day before many of you were
born….
It was 1972 when Ross Yates, Joe Duke, Ed Kay, Carmen Hagelgans, and John Covert began
the Lehigh Valley Athletic Association (LVAA). It was the original running club in the Lehigh
Valley.
In 1977 Charlie Norelli got a few (5) folks together and formed the Emmaus Road Runners
(ERR). Heidi Rodale, Neal Novak, Rick Heimbach, Frank Roberts, and myself- Fran Gough were
the first members of the ERR.
The two running clubs had a friendly, somewhat competitive relationship over the next sixteen
years.
In 1993, the two clubs joined forces to become the Lehigh Valley Road Runners (LVRR). Taking
the best from both the LVAA and ERR, one bigger and better running club was formed with a
mission to promote distance running and racing in the Lehigh Valley. The LVRR logo is a combination of both former clubs’ names. The “LV” comes from the LVAA and the “RR” comes from the ERR. The six runners come from the original ERR logo (representing the 6 folks who began that club).
It was 1994 when the fledgling LVRR had the opportunity to “buy”/ lease the Club House (the
White House) in the Lehigh Parkway. At that point, the place needed a massive amount of work
to bring it up to building code specs. The decision was made to repair the dilapidated building
using volunteers’ sweat equity and donations. It was almost a year later when the White House
was essentially finished. And as they say- “the rest is history”.
Thank you to Carmen Hagelgans for his beta on the LVAA and Neal Novak for his intel on
the ERR.
Fran Gough is a retired high school science teacher and a member of ERR/ LVRR since ’77. He
was a pretty decent distance runner in the latter part of the last century.