Wagner wins 4th of July run for second successive year

HOOD RIVER — Hood River Valley 2025 graduate Kai Wagner won his second successive Kollas Cranmer July 4 run.

Wagner, a mechanical engineering student at Colorado School of Mines, won the 7.41-mile race in 41 minutes, 8 seconds, besting runner-up Kai Wiggins of Boston, MA. (41:26). Wagner, who is HRV’s school recordholder in the 3000-meter run, won the 2025 Fourth of July race in 40:34.

The women’s winner, and finishing fourth overall, was Hood River’s Sarah Reiter in 42:16. Reiter set the women’s course record of 41:49 in 2024. Reiter was also the top female finisher in 2025, when she ran the course from Odell to Jackson Park on the Heights in Hood River in 42:44 and was fourth overall.

In the 2026 race, Reiter edged fellow marathon runner Maddie Meyers, who finished in 42:19. The former University of Washington runner from Portland qualified for the 2028 US Olympic marathon trials when she ran 2:35:37 in the October 2025 Chicago Marathon.

The Kollas Cranmer run had 288 finishers, ranging in age from 74-yar-old Steve Becker to 9-year-old Mack Smith, both from Hood River.

The Kollas Cranmer run is named after Joe Kollas and Jerry Cranmer, who were long-time cross-country enthusiasts in Hood River.