KINGFIELD – The streets of Kingfield were alive with running children Oct. 31. More than 160 students in grades five to eight from Kingfield and Stratton Elementary schools participated in a one-mile run as part of their Presidential Physical Fitness program. The two schools have been running the course together for several years now.

“This year, I asked the students to guess their run time prior to the race,” school physical education teacher Denny Olsen said. “The true point of the run is to try for a better time than they had last year.”

Kingfield eighth-grader Ben Morse was actually a bit slower in this year’s run, but that didn’t deter him from being the first student across the line, with a time of 5:44

“Last year I had a better time by 20 seconds,” Morse said. “But that’s okay. A lot of kids showed up this year and they all ran hard. I think it’s really cool that some of our teachers ran with us this year, too.”

Close on Morse’s heels were classmates Ian Daly at 5:49 and Ben Hitchcock with a time of 5:50, Kenny Moir of Stratton with 6:00 on the nose and Kingfield’s Tim Reid at 6:03.

Several Kingfield seventh-grade girls ran hard and admitted they felt “a little wiped out, but it was fun.” Annah Houston, Holly Thomas, Wren Tooker and Colleen Shields were all running closely together along the course.

Jaci Crossman, a seventh grader from Kingfield, was the first girl across the finish line with a time of 6:35.

This year’s course began on Main Street in front of the Herbert Grand Hotel, ran up Depot, looped around Curve Street and out onto Route 142 before finishing in front of the school.

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