On July 7, 2018, Olathe North senior Brian Beach was honored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City (Blue KC) and Sporting KC as the July Blue KC Sporting Samaritan.
“Brian is an incredible student-athlete,” said Christina Lively, Department Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Blue KC. “He represents everything we look for when selecting honorees for the Blue KC Sporting Samaritan program.”
Brian is using his running talents for a greater purpose than winning medals. Since 2015 – his first of two (so far) State Champion cross country seasons with the Olathe North Eagles – he’d been trying to find a way to use running to help others. 
He contacted local lower-income elementary schools to investigate starting running clubs for the kids, but of the ones that called him back, they all already had such clubs. He tried speaking to young runners through clubs, but only got one opportunity and didn’t feel like he made much of an impact.
“At this point I realized that organizing meaningful community service is actually really difficult and takes a lot more than just a desire to do something, I felt that what could have been God’s calling in my life just wasn’t meant to be,” said Brian, who, in addition to his two state cross country titles also earned a perfect score on his ACTs this spring. “I was starting to realize why so few high schoolers, especially those involved in other extracurricular activities, ever start charities.”