Youngsters Compete In Speed Meet

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The speediest youngsters from all over northeastern Clark County gathered at the Moapa Valley High School track on Tuesday, Nov. 2, to show who was the fastest. It was the long-anticipated 2021 Speed Meet and kids came from four area schools including Virgin Valley, J.L. Bowler, Ute V. Perkins, and Grant M. Bowler Elementary Schools to compete.

It was the ninth year for this very popular event. “All of the kids were excited to be here,” said Grant Bowler Physical Education teacher Denise Hoy who organized the Speed Meet. “We had nothing last year, of course, because of the pandemic. So everyone was ready to be out again.”

In the runup to the Speed Meet, each grade level at the four schools held tryouts to determine who would compete in the final event. The tryouts included a test of speed with a 50 meter dash; and an element of endurance with a distance run of 1/2 mile for grades 1-3 and 3/4 mile for grades 4-5. Boys and girls ran in separate divisions. The top four boys and top four girls in each race qualified to run in last week’s Speed Meet.

This process resulted in more than 300 kids, their parents and fans, travelling to MVHS for the final event on Tuesday.

The kids spent the whole school day competing, first in preliminary heats, and then in the final run for each race. The top runners in each grade level, for each event, received medals.

MVHS Track Coaches Brandon Jones and Shane Hickman were there to help at the finish line. Using the state of the art high school track team equipment, they took photo finishes of each race to keep things official.

CCSD Resource Officer Jimmy Lescinsky was at the starting line firing the pistol in the air to start the races.

During the down times when kids weren’t racing, they would rotate through a series of activity stations provided by a whole host of volunteers. These included a lunch station, a warmup station, and a number of different games and activities.

“This takes a lot of people to bring this off,” said Hoy. “It is a team effort involving a lot of people including parents, PTO, school staff members and more. I really appreciate all of the support and help that we receive in the Speed Meet each year.”

Hoy said that she was pleased at how the Speed Meet went and the educational goals that it accomplished.

“It takes a lot for those kids who are the winners of the Speed Meet,” she said. “But what I like the most isn’t always those overall winners, because in most cases you have a good idea who that is going to be from the start. What I really love about the Speed Meet is those kids who work really hard, do their best and surprise themselves by doing a little better than they thought they could do. It is like the Olympics for them. They didn’t expect that they could accomplish it.”

Hoy told a specific story of one Virgin Valley Elementary School girl who was there to compete in the distance run. Unfortunately, she fell down while she was running in the preliminary race and skinned her knee a little bit.
“I talked to her and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to try and run in the final with her little injury,” Hoy said. “But she finally decided to give it a try and she actually won a medal.”

Hoy said that those kinds of stories illustrate the success of the Speed Meet. “It just plants a little seed in the kids,” Hoy said. “They learn so much about winning and losing, about competition, and about how they can push themselves to excellence.”