Last week, as has been tradition for about a decade & a half, I went to Saugeen Bluffs for the annual Bob Atkinson Memorial Cross Country Meet for Bluewater West Elementary School runners.
Bob Atkinson, like the Royal Canadian Legion he represented, and all the regional Legions for that matter, was a very visible supporter of this event, year after year.
This year, under very good conditions for the runners, the Saugeen Central Wildcats won the team title with 44 points, 10 more than the runners up from Northport.
In the Junior Boys Division, Trevor Donaldson & Luc Nusselder of Saugeen finished 1-2 which certainly helped the Wildcats totals.
Two other Saugeen runners, Sam Nusselder in Senior Boys and Jacob Condy in the Tyke Boys were divisional winners.
Jessica Byers of Walkerton won the Tyke Girls race, Ripley’s Jennelle Smeltzer was the Junior Girls champion and Brie Becker from Northport won the Senior Girls division.
Also of note, Allesha Osborne & Joel Jones from Kinghurst won the Challenge races.
No one is exactly sure how long this meet has been going, maybe 41 years, but based on the success of the 2011 event, it appears to have a lengthy future.
I’m Fred Wallace