The Jack Kelly Award

The Jack Kelly Award is given to the top runner in the state regardless of class. Christian Bale starred as lead Newsie Jack Kelly in the Disney film Newsies. The film follows the life of the newsies as they make a living selling news papers in New York in the year of 1899. Jack Kelly is the main vocal leader of the group. His dream has always been to run away from the refuge and live in Santa Fe where he can reunite with his parents. He and the newsies form a strike against Joseph Pulitzer and William Hearst because they raised the distribution price of the papers, and the newsies make a living off of selling papers. Jack Kelly gets every newsie in New York to turn against Pulitzer and Hearst to try to make a stop with this. With the help of his friends, and his singing voice, Jack Kelly beats Pulitzer and Hearst and they lower the distribution price. Kelly has the option to go to Santa Fe at the end of the movie, but chooses to stay in New York because he felt like he was a part of a family there.



And the winner is………




Silas Eastman Fryeburg
The kid is an absolute stud. He won his first state championships last Saturday running the second fastest time of all classes (16:02.44). The thing that is amazing about Eastman is that he was never challenged in any of his races. He simply dominated the state of Maine this year as evidence to his first place at the Southwest Classic where he ran a time of 16:40 in the heat, and was nearly 40 seconds ahead of the second place finisher. He won the Western Regional title running a time of 16:20 which was good for the second fastest time of all classes. He was slightly pushed the Western Maine Conference Championship where Abshir Horor and Tim Follo slowly started to close the gap on him, but that’s been it as far as competition. Eastman is only a sophomore so expect to improve over the course of his career. He has already received comparisons to Greely legend Ben True which is truly remarkable. Expect him to challenge for a top ten finish at the New England Championships on Saturday. I can’t wait to see what kind of times he will run over the course of his high school career.

Rest of the Top Five:

2. Matt McClintock Madison
Season Best: 16:00.91

3. Nick Morris Scarborough
Season Best: 16:25.80

4. Chase Brown Boothbay
Season Best: 16:12.4

5. Harlow Ladd Messalonskee
Season Best: 16:08