“I’m holding history.” That was Oliver’s comment to me as he clutched his Canon R10 camera and we stepped foot onto the Howard Wood Field track complex in Sioux Falls Thursday morning for the first day of the 2023 SDHSAA State Track & Field Championships. I took a second to let his words — “I’m holding history” — sink in before replying, “Yes you are, Ollie. Yes you are.”

The Freeman Academy/Marion 4x200 relay team of Karter Weber, Keaton Preheim, Maddox Kihne and Liam Ortman hangs out on the infield waiting to see their position following the preliminary race at the state track meet on Friday. The boys qualified for the final with the seventh-best time in the field and went on to finish seventh in Saturday's final.

CLICK HERE FOR A GALLERY OF IMAGES FEATURING FREEMAN ACADEMY/MARION, FREEMAN PUBLIC AND MENNO ATHLETES COMPETING AT THE 2023 STATE TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS

JEREMY WALTNER  - PUBLISHER With 21 American flags fluttering in the breeze — each one once covering the casket of a fallen veteran — Shirlene Simonsen read the Honor Roll naming 367 deceased comrades from the greater Menno area. Twelve Mettlers. Nine Auchs, eight Aisenbreys, seven Quasts, six Guthmillers, five Schaeffers, four Haars, three Lehrs, two Langelands and one Seuss, with a host of other surnames and first names acknowledged through the spoken word.

A small group of volunteers, including Luke Allison, Dennis Lehmann and Abraham Cadillo, were working together Wednesday morning to plant 36 roses at the Prairie Rose Amphitheater that is part of the Freeman Prairie Arboretum. It's all part of ongoing maintenance, upkeep and improvements at the 40-acre spot that, this year, is marking 25 years since plans for the arboretum were first announced. Allison is a 2018 Freeman Academy graduate, and both he and Cadillo are recent graduates of Hesston College in Hesston, Kan., who are spending a bit of time in Freeman this summer.

The homestretch of the 1600-meter run at Howard Wood Field Saturday afternoon featured Jada Koerner at her best — strong, determined and, in the end, successful. Competing at the 2023 State Track & Field Championships in Sioux Falls, the Freeman Academy graduate turned on the burners to pick up several places in the final lap of the race and come away with a 5th-place finish in the mile. Her clocking of 5:24.25 was well in front of her incoming best of 5:38.04, which had her 11th in the field, and was a PR to send her off into the high school prep sports sunset.

It was well known that the Menno High School boys had their eyes fixated on bringing home a team plaque from this week's State Track & Field Championships in Sioux Falls, and that they did. So did the girls. In what may be the strongest overall finish for the track and field program in Menno school history, the boys ended up sixth while the girls finished fifth in the team standings — both finding a coveted place when the team awards were announced following the three-day competition Saturday afternoon. CLASS B BOYS

Ashton Massey did it. Three hours after winning the 100 hurdles and just over an hour after winning the triple jump, the Menno junior emerged as a triple gold medalist by claiming her third individual title at the 2023 SDHSAA State Track & Field Championships — the 300 hurdles. Massey finished 47.19. She was third in the 100 hurdles and fourth in the 300 hurdles as a sophomore last year.

The Freeman High School girls had the lead as Zenovia Butler took the baton for the anchor carry in the 4x100, leaving only the fastest runner in the entire women's field — Colman-Egan senior Daniela Lee — to catch her. Which she did. But the Flyers' exhilarating runner-up finish reflects the surge the FHS girls have seen toward the end of the season, as the relay team of Butler, Makenzie Scharberg, Rylee Peters and Kate Miller set five consecutive PRs going into Saturday's final. They went into the state meet third in the Class B field.

In a race that was toe-to-toe the entire way, Menno junior Ashton Massey clipped Freeman eighth grader Rylee Peters to claim the gold medal in the 100 hurdles at the 2023 State Track & Field Championships Saturday morning. Massey edged Peters 15.38 to 15.47 and took advantage of a stumble at the end for Peters, who appeared to have the edge after clearing the final hurdle and finished second. "It was so close the whole way; I definitely thought she was going to get me after the last hurdle," said Massey, who was fourth in the event at state as a sophomore last year.