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the host.
traditional biography.
Mike Rusch has called Bentonville, Arkansas home since 1986. He graduated from Bentonville High School and attended the University of Arkansas, earning a degree in Computer Science and Computer Engineering.
Mike is a Veteran of the United States Marine Corps and began his career at Walmart, Information Systems Division before moving on to iconic companies such as Hershey Foods, The Walt Disney Company, and Nickelodeon/Viacom.
In 2010, Mike Rusch joined the startup team at Pure Charity, an organization developing world-class fundraising, technology, and strategy solutions for nonprofit organizations striving to address some of the world's most difficult problems. Mike serves as one of the Managing Directors of Pure Charity today where they have helped over 1,250+ nonprofits raise over $250MM.
Mike currently serves on the Board of Directors for several nonprofits, including Equity Impact Fund, 99 Balloons, Laundry Love, Mercy House Global, Our Beautiful Family, and New Beginnings Northwest Arkansas. Additionally, he served as a founding Board member of Canopy Northwest Arkansas, helping to create the first Refugee Settlement site in the State of Arkansas.
In addition to his professional and nonprofit engagements, Mike has been a part of the Northwest Arkansas cycling community. As an avid Gravel Cyclist, he has participated in endurance events such as Unbound Gravel XL, MidSouth, Big Sugar Classic, Rule of Three, Telluride Gravel, Birdeye Gravel Fest, and attempted Leadville MTB 100 but failed at mile 79 (that story is not over). He has also completed other endurance events like the Ironman Triathlon and numerous Marathons and long-distance cycling events, including the Arkansas Traverse & Arkansas Graveler.
Mike was a part of the first graduating class of the Northwest Arkansas Community College Bicycle Assembly & Repair Technician accredited certification program and is currently a member of the Northwest Arkansas Community College teaching staff as an Instructor for the Continuing Education Program for Bicycle Maintenance Fundamentals.
Mike also currently serves as a co-chair on the Business and Nonprofits subcommittee of the Bentonville Moves Coalition, an alliance of community organizations, local businesses, schools, institutions, civic leaders, and engaged residents working to make our community safer and more connected to support safer streets, more transportation choices, and policies that improve prosperity, health, and quality-of-life in Bentonville
He was a part of starting Bentonville Ride Club as a place of deepening local community around the thrill of riding in our community and helped organize events like the Arkansas Traverse (Documentary Link) and rides across Missouri and into Oklahoma.
Mike married the most incredible woman in the world, Corrie, and together they have four children. His love for a great story, whether told through nonprofit endeavors, professional achievements, or cycling adventures, reflects his appreciation for the diverse and interconnected narratives that shape our lives.
relational biography.
The name I was given is Michael Charles Rusch.
I was born near what is colonially known as Denver, Colorado, on the homelands of the Arapaho, Ute, Cheyenne, and Lakota peoples, nations that remain connected to the land today. My roots stretch across the Atlantic; I am a fourth-generation descendant of immigrants from Germany, England, and Norway, huddled masses who passed through Ellis Island. I am the son of Gregg and Kathy Rusch, a husband to Corrie, and a father to John Michael, William, Conley, and Sosi—whose name carries the beauty and strength of her Ethiopian heritage.
Today, I live in Bentonville, Arkansas, on the ancestral lands of the Osage, Quapaw, and Caddo peoples, who were removed from this place, a land shaped by movement, memory, and resilience.
Once known to the Osage as Nì Ŏkašį́, Bentonville sits within the Springfield Plateau, a part of the Ozark Mountains, where time and water have carved rolling hills and deep hollers from layers of limestone and chert.
I make my home near Black Apple Creek—its original name unknown to me—just above the cool rise of Park Springs, where water begins its slow journey. It flows into Town Branch, then gathers with Shewmaker Creek, joins McKisic Creek, and merges into Little Sugar Creek. From there, it continues through the wide embrace of the Grand River Watershed.
These colonially named waters travel north into Missouri, then southwest into present-day Oklahoma—the federally assigned home of the Cherokee Nation, a people who were forcibly removed along the Trail of Tears. That northern removal route passes within half a mile of my home.
Eventually, these waters join the Neosho River, merge into the Arkansas River, then the Mississippi, and finally reach the Gulf of Mexico.
This is a landscape of convergence, where water carries not just life, but memory—flowing through stories of removal, resistance, and the ongoing search for belonging.
Bentonville, like much of this region, also holds the stories of enslaved people, men, women, and children whose labor built early communities, yet whose names too often remain unknown. Their presence shaped this land as deeply as the creeks and stones beneath our feet. The echoes of their lives persist in the soil, in the structures they built, and in the generations that followed. To acknowledge this truth is to begin to tell the whole story of this place and to commit to the ongoing work of justice and remembrance.
Once, this region was a tapestry of oak-hickory forests, wide savannas, and tallgrass prairies where Bison once traveled. Beneath its rocky, unyielding soil lie remnants of ancient seabeds, cherty limestone, and dolomite that form a foundation both steadfast and unforgiving to a gravel bicycle.
This place, my home, is a convergence of plains and plateaus, clear creeks, cedar glades, rolling hills, rocky outcrops, and hollowed stones. It reflects the deep, unseen movements of water beneath our feet, a terrain that breathes, porous and alive, shaped by forces past and present.
Here, I am simply a community member seeking to cultivate spaces of belonging, dialogue, and shared understanding. I am grateful to stand in its story, to learn from those who have shaped it, and to share in the work of tending what is and what is to come.