The year was 1951.

Howdy Wilcox Jr., the executive director of the Indiana University Foundation, wanted to model a bicycle race after the Indianapolis 500, a race in which his father had raced. But he couldn’t operate the bicycle race by himself. He needed help, and being at a university, he turned to the students.

Thus, Steering Committee was created, and is still in operation today, as the Indiana University Student Foundation will put on its 69^th men’s Little 500 and 32^nd women’s Little 500.

Steering Committee is made up of senior students who oversee events, scholarship processes, and committees all surrounding the Little 500.

“Steering Committee is as old as the race is,” IUSF director Tara Vickers said. “Kind of at the onset when Howdy Wilcox in 1950 decided that we were going to have a Little 500, he enlisted student leaders on the IU Bloomington campus that were undergraduate students to help him plan, promote, execute this event and it’s grown from there.”

Growth has been a big part of the Little 500 over the years. The introduction of the women’s race was part of that, but one of the biggest parts of the Little 500 is raising scholarship money. And Steering Committee has a huge part in making that happen.

All of the committees the students are apart of directly impact the race. For Emily Eisenbarth and Amelia Herrick, they are apart of L5C2, or the Little 500 Cycling Committee. As Herrick puts it, anything to do with bikes, her committee is on it. And with this based off a bike race, she has put in long hours at the track.

But Steering Committee is only for seniors, and getting involved with IUSF started a few years ago for both Eisenbarth and Herrick.

“I joined IUSF as a sophomore and I was looking for more ways to get involved on campus,” Eisenbarth said. “I feel like my experience at IU was going to class, going home, hanging out with some friends, and that was it. I was looking for something more.”

Both share a commonality in the fact that they are so happy they got involved with the Little 500. Whatever facet you are involved with the race, you are impacted in a positive way. Lifelong friendships and memories are made and it’s a sense of community on a campus of over 40,000+ students.

“It’s really hard to communicate to your family and friends and your professors and people you meet on campus about why you want to be apart of the Little 500 and put it on instead of being apart of race week events,” Herrick said.

Steering Committee has given both Eisenbarth and Herrick and avenue to be apart of the Little 500. Much of their work might go unnoticed at times, but there is no doubt that their contributions are felt in a big way on race day and all throughout the spring.

“It’s been something that I’m going to cherish forever,” Eisenbarth said. “To say that I had this major impact on IU – Little 5 is such a big part of IU and I think it’s going to mean a lot to me forever to say I had a direct hand in that.”