WHS Athletes state tourney-bound: Storey qualifies in track

In the summer of 1995, I worked a three month internship at The Warroad Pioneer, which I'm sorry to say has since ceased operation. This was the first professional newspaper that I worked for in my career, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I had only worked at Bemidji State University's newspaper for about a year and half before landing the internship. At The Pioneer I gained experience in sports, feature, beat and government reporting. I designed pages, took and developed photographs and was responsible for community relations. The best part is that I remain friends with the owners nearly 30 years later.

June 6, 1995

By Devlyn Brooks

Success has struck this year's boys track team. First they captured second place as a team at the sub-section meet, and in doing so, placed 10 individual qualifiers and two relay teams in the section meet. The good fortune continued last Saturday with the team sending a qualifier to the state meet.

Chris Storey, senior, finished second in the boys 800 meter run and will now move on to the state level.

Storey is only the second boy Warroad has sent to the state meet in 10 years. Ironically, the other boy who also went in the 800 meter run.

"We took him out of the medley relay so he would have a better chance in the open 800 run," boys track coach Richard McBride said. "I guess it paid off. He ran three or four seconds faster than his usual time."

Going into the section meet, Storey had had the third or fourth best time. However, he had beaten a couple of the people who had better times than him in the sub-section meet.

Storey will run in a preliminary race Friday night to see if he makes it to the state 800 meter run final, which will be held Saturday. The top nine runners will qualify for the final.

"He has to run as good, if not better than his section time," McBride said. "He's going to be close to qualifying for the final."

McBride said that it will help that the preliminary race is at night because the temperature won't be as high as the section meet, which was held during the day.

The state track meet will be held Friday and Saturday, June 9 and 10, in Blaine, Minnesota.