UGLY Comes To Cooperstown:

87 Runners, Walkers, Plus Sweaters, Vie For Ugliest

By LIBBY CUDMORE • The Freeman’s Journal

Edition of Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014

COOPERSTOWN

It was a wooly and wild weekend in Cooperstown. Things got pretty ugly for a bit, but everyone still had a great time.

Some 90 runners and walkers, plus spectators aplenty, attended the belated Rockin’ Around Cooperstown Ugly Sweater Run Saturday, Dec. 13, bringing out their Santa Snuggies, reindeer sweatshirts and sweaters bedecked with bows, jingle bells and even working Christmas lights. “We had a great turnout,” said Matt Hazzard, Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce executive director. “We had a community that rallied behind the event, despite the weather – because people are interested in new things here.”

Though the race had been originally scheduled for the Saturday before, ice forced Hazzard to delay the event for a week.

Originally, the run had been planned as an all-day event, with music, a pug kissing booth, sleigh rides and a competition for who had the ugliest sweater, judged by The Farmers’ Museum’s own Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

The contest did happen, and Hazzard’s wife Stephanie won ugliest sweater prize for a white Santa cardigan, and the downtown fun ended just in time to piggyback onto The Candlelight Evening at The Farmers’ Museum.

Kyle Breier, Oneonta, won the 5K in 25:41. The fastest female was Melissa Swislosky, Mount Upton, who finished in 27:34.