The 5-foot-4 senior won the 1,600-meter run and the 3,200 at the Class 5A state meet this past season, leading the Miners to a fifth-place finish as a team. The state's 2016-17 Gatorade Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year, Rich won the 1,600 in 4:55.39, 7.04 seconds ahead of her next-closest competitor. She broke the tape in the 3,200 by a margin of 12.19 seconds with a time of 10:39.28. Her personal-best time in the 3,200 of 10:34.73 ranked as the nation's No. 76 performance among prep competitors in 2017 at the time of her selection.
Rich has maintained a 3.75 GPA in the classroom. She has signed a national letter of intent to compete on an athletic scholarship at Brigham Young University beginning this fall.
A talented pianist, Rich has participated in service-mission trips to Fiji and Cape Verde, and she has volunteered locally as part of multiple community-service initiatives through her church youth group. "Whitney is a one-of-a-kind athlete," said Alisha Paxton, head coach of Bingham High. "It's not just that she's successful or just that she's a hard worker, it's that she lives the sport. She analyzes everything to maximize her performance."
