MORGANTOWN — The annual Jim Dunn Memorial Twilight 5-miler race was held Thursday evening to raise money towards the Jim Dunn Memorial Scholarship and a yearly endowment to SteppingStones.
The annual scholarship is distributed among multiple graduating seniors from around the state that run competitively throughout the year and who are continuing on to run in college in remembrance of Jim Dunn, a local runner and former WVU sprinter from 1968-1972.
“Whenever Jim passed away we wanted to find a way to memorialize him and keep the good memories alive,” Darlene Dunn, race committee chair and widow of Jim Dunn, said before the race on Thursday. “The Twilight 5-miler has always been an attractive race in the past and for the past 16 years we’ve been able to give over 39 scholarships to high school students around the state.”
Three recipients were named this year with two of them coming from Morgantown High School. Recent MHS graduates Irene Riggs and Amelia Summers joined Alexis Lamb of Doddridge County High School as the 2023 scholarship winners. Each wrapped up their prep careers with strong 2022-23 seasons and will continue to run at the next level in Division I. Riggs is off to Stanford while Summers will ruin at Elon in the fall. Lamb will make her way to Morgantown to run for WVU.
The Jim Dunn Scholarship has given more than $30,000 of scholarship money to recipients since the inaugural year.
Runners gathered on Clay Street just outside the Wharf Street Parking Garage in the early evening Thursday. From there they followed Clay Street to the end, turned right onto the paved Caperton Rail trail and headed north past Hazel Ruby McQuain Riverfront Park to the WVU Core Arboretum. Upon entering the WVU CA, runners encountered a single-track dirt trail until the midpoint of the loop back on the rail trail. Runners then completed the final two miles on the rail trail to the finish line near HRMRP just before the Decker’s Creek Bridge. Except for the slight uphill approach at the WVU CA, the course is primarily flat or downhill.
Rocco DeVincent, 19, of Morgantown posted the fastest time for the men’s division with a time of 27:32. Bailey DeMoss of Bridgeport, also 19, finished second at 28:03, and Anthony Sanders, 20, from Ridgeley, was third with a time of 28:28.
For the women, Kaylyn Christopher from Fairmont took first overall with a time of 34:04. Amanda Cosner and Nicole Lemal-Stefanovich, each from Morgantown, posted times of 34:52 and 35:56 for second and third, respectively.
Dunn says one thing she takes pride in is the community aspect that has been built around the event itself. Local business sponsor the event and even provide food and drinks for the participants.
“My concept was to take the race itself and expand it a bit,” Dunn said. “Now places like Oliverio’s and other local businesses are involved and it’s great.”
West Virginia Junior College, Truist, and Morgantown Parking Authority are just a few of the sponsors for the event.
“We have also been able to raise over $16,000 for SteppingStones,” Darlene said. “It’s very exciting to be able to provide both charities that were both near to my husband’s heart and this year we have three amazing recipients.”
Mike Mosser, former teammate of Jim Dunn at WVU, and 1993 WVU Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, is the director for the WV Friends of Track and Field and spoke of the three athletes receiving the award this year and what it means to him for the sport that he loves to be so strong in the state.
“All three of them are just amazing,” he said of the scholarship recipients. “The best part is two of them, Irene and Amelia, represented their countries on the world stage with the United States and Ecuador. It’s amazing to have that quality of athletes in the same area and the same school. When I came to school here in 1968, the competition around the state wasn’t where it is now. Now we have students competing and being successful at so many levels. Track and field is the essence of all sports and we want to support the student-athletes first.”
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