Celebrating God’s ‘majestic creation’ – and multiple state championships

Last month, Cade Nold was named Boys Track Athlete of the Year by the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame during presentation ceremonies in Springfield. It was the third year the 2025 Dora High School graduate had been nominated for the award and the first year he won. 

The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame Athlete of the Year awards differ from most state-level athletic competitions in that nominees competing for the award come from all sizes of schools in the southwest quarter of the state. In contrast, most athletic competitions, including state tournaments, have schools competing with other Missouri schools in their same size classification. This year, Cade's fellow nominees for Boys Track Athlete of the Year honor came from all sizes of Missouri high schools, ranging from Thomas Jefferson Prep, a private boarding school in St. Louis with 78 students, to Ozark High School with 1,346. Dora, a Class 1 high school with 90 students this year, was second smallest on the 11-nominee list.

The impressive honor capped Cade's career of track accomplishments at Dora that included Missouri Class 1 championship wins in the 400-meter dash as well as the 800-meter run – not just this year, but for three years in a row. Equally impressive, as he won this year's 800-meter event, he set a new Missouri Class 1 record time of 1:53:81. 

Cade is an exceptional athlete and scholar (he was salutatorian of this year's graduating class), but he wasn't the only standout in Dora's 2025 boys track program. Cade and his twin brother, Joshua Nold, plus teammates Daniel Tomlinson, Brayden Decker and alternate Josiah Ward, won this year's Missouri Class 1 boys 4 x 400-meter relay too. 

Cade's two first-place wins, the relay team's title, plus teammate Daniel Tomlinson's second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run and his third overall standing in the 3,200-meter run, earned Dora the 2025 Missouri Class 1 boys track team championship. 

The DHS girls track and field athletes also excelled at the state meet. Sophomore Haley Perkins won second place in the javelin throw, and the Dora girls 4 x 800-meter relay team took third place honors.

In total, nine Dora track and field athletes qualified to compete at the 2025 state meet. 

The accomplishments seem even more remarkable when you realize that Dora doesn't have a track. Instead, its student runners practice in the school's parking lot or, when available, the baseball field. Occasionally the team is invited to practice at other schools that do have tracks, but they're all 20-plus miles away. 

"We don't get a lot of actual track experience until we get to the meets," said Dora's track and cross-country coach Sheree Nold – who is also Cade and Joshua's mother. In addition to coaching the girls and boys teams, Sheree teaches high school math at Dora.

Becoming coach

She credits her predecessor, Angela Masters, with showing her how to be a good coach. "I came up under her wings," Sheree said, adding that after Angela's son Waylon Masters graduated in 2021, Angela told Sheree, "Let's pass the baton. You step into this."

Angela Masters continues to be "a big cheerleader and a help," Sheree said.

That change meant Sheree was Dora's head track coach in 2023 when the Nolds' daughter, Autumn, won the Missouri Class 1 title for the 400-meter dash. That year, Dora sent nine qualifying boys and girls athletes to the state track competition. Cade was one of them; that was his first year winning the Class 1 400-meter dash and the 800-meter run. He and Joshua were also part of Dora's boys 4 x 400-meter relay team that qualified for state that year. Other 2023 relay team members were James Barton and Kendall Lovan. 

(Although he didn't win a state championship, the Nolds' oldest son, Gunnison, a 2021 DHS graduate, was also active in a variety of youth and school sports, including baseball, basketball and cross-country. Now 23, he's preparing for a career in law enforcement.) 

In addition to Masters' help, Sheree says her brother-in-law Matt Clark is an important mentor to her as coach. Clark is a former college coach and a previous semifinalist in the Olympic trials, and he also has coached for many years at Smith Cotton High School in Sedalia. "He has walked me through workout programs, and he's more dialed-in than any coach I know," Sheree said. During her four years as Dora track coach, Clark "has poured his knowledge into every athlete here through me. In that way, he has helped all of our students grow in their capacity. His wisdom and insights have helped me every day," she said.

Sheree isn't someone who coaches only from the sidelines. She runs with Dora's cross-country team and says she finds "value in asking my students to do something I'm also willing to do. Sometimes it hurts. It's uncomfortable. But I want to feel the same uncomfortable they're feeling. It also puts me in place so that I can be on the cross-country course to advise and position. It takes energy to do that." 

Sheree expressed appreciation and thanks to her talented assistant coaches, Kaitlyn Perkins and Calli VanRanken.

A foundation of faith and ministry 

To understand how the four Nold siblings became standout student athletes and leaders, it helps to know their family background.

Sheree Nold ran track and played basketball as a high school student in her small hometown near St. Joseph, but she was most active as part of a competitive traveling softball team and as a cheerleader.  

She met her husband, Shelby, at church while they were attending rival colleges. Sheree was at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, earning a degree in agronomy, while Shelby was playing college football and working on a degree in exercise science at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph. Shelby grew up in Sedalia and started college in Kansas but moved to his grandparents' ancestral land nearer St. Joseph to help on the farm after his grandfather died. He transferred to Missouri Western and began attending a church in St. Joe that he had visited as a child during stays with family. It happened to be Sheree's family's home church. 

So, with a forgotten childhood history of visiting the church, when Shelby joined the congregation years later and caught Sheree's eye, it wasn't actually the first time they had met. Although they didn't remember each other, "we would have been in Vacation Bible School together" during Shelby's summertime and holiday visits, Sheree said. She even has a photograph of them in a Christian play when they were little. "We were both angels," she said. "I'm in the back row. He's in front."

They were married in 1998 in St. Joseph and then lived in St. Joe, then Gower and then El Dorado Springs while Sheree worked in agricultural sales and Shelby was self-employed. They served as youth pastors at their church in El Dorado Springs and while there, felt a need to become "more rounded in ministry," Sheree said. While they felt confident ministering to fellow believers in their church, they wanted to learn to minister "to those who came from different backgrounds than us." 

They prayed, asking God, "How can we grow and learn to serve a group of hurting people?"

That quest took them to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where they spent a year on staff at the Dale House Project, which works with juvenile students placed there by the Department of Human Services or youth coming out of the social service or juvenile system. While there, the Nolds also attended seminary.       

  In scenic Colorado, they saw the impact the great outdoors can have on hurting people. "Many of our students had not been out of the city limits," Sheree said. When the Nolds took their students who came from "hurting situations" to nearby parks and other natural sites, pulling them away from their usual distractions, "the heaviness of life lifted, their countenance changed, their attitude and personality became softer instead of hard," she said.

Sheree and Shelby went through a few more moves and career changes as they continued to work in ministry, but that revelation about the healing power of nature stayed with them and, years later, would eventually lead them to make their home at beautiful Rainbow Springs on the North Fork of the White River south of Dora. 

Always seeking God's guidance for how they could most effectively serve in ministry, they started the year 2003 with a 10-day fast and time of prayer. On the ninth night of the fast, Shelby stayed up late, writing down the powerful message he felt God giving him for how they should proceed with their ministry. Sheree went to bed and slept soundly but woke up early "with a clear idea of where we should focus, what steps we should take," she said. She quickly sat down at the computer to record the directions she felt God giving her.

When Shelby woke up later and discovered what she was doing, they compared what they had written independently. "It wasn't word-for-word the same, but the whole idea, the principal steps to take going forward were there. It was a blueprint," Sheree said.

After that, "everything came right into line," she said. The legal fees for getting a 501(c)3 nonprofit designation with the IRS were donated, and they began doing "outdoor mentoring" while they lived in El Dorado Springs and later in Fair Play. They also worked in men's and youth outreach, youth discipleship, and family and church ministry. 

Moving their ministry to Ozark County

The Nolds continued in that work until 2015, when the opportunity opened for them to move to Rainbow Springs, where they could offer outdoor mentoring full-time in the nonprofit, ministry-based business they named Majestic Outdoor Adventures. They now lease and manage the property surrounding one of Missouri's largest springs. Their website (majesticoutdoors.com) explains that they "use the outdoors to help bring life, adventure, direction and purpose into people's lives. . . . through a youth mentoring program, wilderness backpacking trips, retreats, camps and professional guided hunting/fishing trips."

The retreat's biggest outreach is to the Dave Roever Evangelistic Association and its Warrior Reconnect program, which brings veterans who are recovering from traumatic situations to Majestic Outdoor Adventures twice a year to enjoy and find respite in the healing power of nature. "We work at building relationship," Sheree said. "Cell phones don't work down here, so it's a great opportunity to be quiet and get away from the distractions of the world."

The disastrous flood of 2017 that wiped out many homes and businesses along the North Fork hit the Rainbow Springs facility hard, washing away the site's two bunkhouses and a pavilion and damaging the retreat's lodge. But the Nolds continued their work, and their business still operates year-round, although activities are reduced during the winter because "it's pretty much tent camping, with a nice [rebuilt] pavilion and cooking facility." 

Now they're working to restore the lodge and hope to have a couple of cabins in the future. "We have big work ahead of us," Sheree said, but their faith remains constant. 

"We feel so fortunate to be able to be here at Rainbow Springs and continue to use God's majestic creative to bless people's lives. We're thankful to be here in Ozark County, . . . the best part of the state," she said.

Being mindful of the true source of their gifts

The Nolds' four children have been a part of making Majestic Outdoor Adventures a success as the Nolds have guided them in developing strong physical and spiritual health. They emphasize a deliberately healthy lifestyle – a nutritious diet, meaningful exercise and plenty of sleep – while reminding them of the scriptural admonition about the original source of their talents. It's the question asked in 1 Corinthians 4:7: "Why do you boast as if you had not received it?"

The New Century Version of the Bible provides a modern translation: "Who says you are better than others? What do you have that was not given to you?" It reminds believers who accomplish big things – like state championship titles and honors – to remain humble and grateful, always mindful that God is the true source of their gifts. 

 In their earliest years, Sheree homeschooled the Nold children. For three years after they moved to Rainbow Springs in 2015, they attended Faith Christian Academy in West Plains, where Sheree taught high school science and math classes. In 2018, the Nold children transferred to Dora. A few months later, before joining the DHS faculty, Sheree worked for the University of Missouri Extension Service, teaching nutrition classes at schools and community events while Shelby continued to direct Majestic Outdoor Adventures and manage the property. 

During that same time, Shelby's father, who was in the late stages of Parkinson's disease, came to live with the Nolds. So they became full-time caregivers while also managing the business, working outside the home and parenting their children.

Sheree says their children got their tendency toward athleticism from Shelby, a characteristic that showed up right from the beginning. "They all walked early, and they've always been very active," she said. "Gunnison was shooting a long bow at 15 months."

Shelby also gets credit for being "very hands on when it comes to healthy living, nutrition and making sure they're keeping their bodies healthy," but, during the school year, he "doesn't interfere" with her coaching or the kids' training, she said. 

He plays a different role in the off season, setting up summer workout plans that include training and weight programs based on his experience and degree in exercise science. Often the parents work out alongside the kids. The Nolds even developed a 5K running course on the property and hosted a track meet there two years ago.

 This fall will surely feel different at Rainbow Springs as Sheree and Shelby's youngest children step into the next chapter of their lives, making their parents empty-nesters. It will feel different for Cade and Joshua too, marking the first time they have lived apart. Cade will be attending Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, and Joshua will join their sister Autumn at Evangel University in Springfield. (All three have college scholarships.)  

That means there will be another new dynamic for the Nolds as Cade and Joshua face the possibility of competing against each other during their college years. 

Punctuated prayer

One thing probably won't change. It seems inevitable that the Nold family will continue to hold fast to their Christian faith and continue their emphasis on serving others through ministry. And prayer – there will surely continue to be lots of prayer in the days and years ahead. It may even be punctuated prayer, something Shelby sent heavenward on that early morning last spring as Sheree and the twins headed for the state competition in Jefferson City. 

Many hours later, at bedtime, when the family was back home and still glowing with the day's extraordinary successes, Shelby told Sheree, "It hasn't left me all day that when I prayed for the boys this morning, I prayed that their season would end with an exclamation point."

 The championship-winning twins smiled when reminded of their dad's prayer. "They knew exactly what he meant," Sheree said.