BYU Hall of Fame

Remember my ode to runner reunions? Well, last month I went to the biggest and best runner reunion of all time.

When I was a runner at BYU, I belonged to the best cross country team in the nation.

BYU Cross Country Meet, 1999 - I am on the far right.

In 1997 BYU won the NCAA Championship
In 1998 BYU finished 2nd at the NCAA Championship
In 1999 BYU won the NCAA Championship
In 2000 BYU finished 2nd at the NCAA Championship
In 2001 BYU won the NCAA Championship
In 2002 BYU won the NCAA Championship
In 2003 BYU finished 2nd at the NCAA Championship

It's pretty amazing to think about, even now, so many years later. I was on the team from 1997-2001. I was a member of three National Championship teams. In October BYU inducted those National Championship teams and all of their members into the Hall of Fame. There was no way I was missing this.

The official festivities began on Thursday night with a reception followed by a banquet in the Hinckley Center. We watched video clips from each championship and the team captains from each year gave a speech.

1997 Champions

1999 Champions

 

2001 Champions

I really was there for almost all of the domination. The best thing about that is that I knew almost everyone at the reunion. The only girls that I hadn't run with were those who joined the team in 2002.

My freshman year I was one of thirteen incoming freshman. 13! I'm pretty sure that's the biggest incoming class BYU cross country has ever had. You can even read an article about it here. Here we are sixteen years later (with adopted freshman Mel - she was a transfer from Ricks). We sure missed our missing teammates. We we thrilled to hear that some of the traditions these 13 freshman started are still going strong.  Nicole and I started the mandatory talent show at cross country camp. (Pleased but amazed that they are still doing that.) Sarah and Jill made up the team cheer: "How are we going to run? Fast as a cougar!" These are also the girls that began the first weekly red meat nights.

Jill, Nicole, Me, Sarah, Kristen, Shar, Lindsey, Mel, Tara, Emili

6 Freshman at Outdoor WAC in 1998

My table mates plus a couple extras: Jill, Sarah, Kristen, Maggie, Nicole, Katy, Me, Nan

Nate's parents were able to come to the banquet.

Fabulous Night.

 The next day we had a big, casual reunion in the Smith Field House with all the families and kids.

Coach giving a speech.

Coach Shane loved sweater vests. He wore them all of the time when I was running at BYU. We loved to give him a hard time about the sweater vests. One year all of the girls showed up for the plane flight to the WAC championship wearing sweater vests. Coach told them they all looked really sharp. We were SO excited to see Coach wearing this famous pink sweater vest.

So much of the reunion was put together through the legwork of the fabulous Caisa who gathered us all on facebook. We had so much fun in the weeks leading up to the reunion reminiscing. During this time we gathered all our favorite Coach Shane quotes so that we could display them at the reunion.

With Liz Jackson

Liz is just about the sweetest person on the planet. We actually met before my junior year of high school when we were both at the BYU Cross Country Summer Camp. We had so much fun together there, and I was so happy to see a familiar face when I came out for my recruiting trip my senior year of high school - Liz's freshman year at BYU. She put together an amazing photo book for Coach with photos she gathered from all of us. Here's one I submitted of me and Liz in our younger years:

Sweden in 1998 - Kara, Me, Kristen, Tara, Laurel, Liz

Courtney says she wants Coach's job. I think she'd be good at it.

Courtney, Nicole, Mel, Me

Jill will always be one of my very best friends.

With Jill at Outdoor WAC in 1999.

With Jill at the reunion 14 years later.

 Kristen, Nicole, and I were roommates in 1998.

15 years later under the National Champion banners!

My main event was the mile. (Sometimes cross country races seemed awfully long, and I was always excited to get back on the track for track season.)

NCAA Outdoor Track in 1999

During the track seasons we worked out in groups according to the distances we raced. I spent a lot of time with the ladies below, my fellow milers.

Sue, Me, Jaime, Lindsay, Mel - where were Anika and Kassi?

In 2001 I went to the NCAA Cross Country meet. This was my 5th and final year on the team (I took a redshirt year in 1998). That year we smashed the competition. 6 of the 7 runners were All-Americans.

Emily, Jill, Me, Katie, Misha, Jessie, Amy, Sarah, Tara, Nan, Lindsay, Kassi

Some of my 2001 teammates

Amy, Anika, Julia, Breanne, Me, Angie, Kristen

After the reunion it was time to go to the football game where we were all honored on the field at halftime. We lucked out with beautiful fall weather on this trip. I hadn't been to a college football game since I graduated from BYU, and it was fun to be back there surrounded by all of my friends.

Our only picture together. I have crazy eyes.

Nicole and her 3-week-old baby.

Waiting to go onto the field.

Devra, Nicole, Jill, Me, Tiffany

Jill, Marty, Emili, Tasha, Nicole, Lindsay

 Halftime Honors.

It was pretty awesome to be on the football field.

I was not ready to be done with the reunion, so I went to the team breakfast the next morning even though I couldn't go on the run.

Kristen, Nan, Breanne, Tiffany, Jamie, Anne

I took Felix with me to the breakfast while Nate and Beckett ran some errands. I'm glad I did because Felix loved Coach Shane. He went right up to him and asked him to pick him up and gave him a long hug. It made me kind of teary.

 More group shots:

Look who's sitting on Coach's lap

Hall of Fame Week was one of the best weeks of my life. I have been able to see lots of my running friends in the years since I graduated from BYU, but having everyone together again was just the most incredible feeling. It's like we all belong together. I can honestly say that I like every one of these girls. One of our traditions every cross country season was to write on a tarp at each meet. We all wrote on a tarp at  the reunion too. Here's what I wrote: "I made so many good memories and many of my very best friends on the track (and cross country course)." I'm never going to forget Hall of Fame Week.

Presidential Houses - Part 2, Monticello and Ash Lawn-Highland

We began our second day of Presidential house tours at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

Jefferson's illustrious career included drafting the Declaration of Independence and serving as a member of the Virginia legislature, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, as Governor of Virginia, as the U.S. minister to France, as the Secretary of State, as Vice President, and, of course, as the third President of the United States. He was also an inventor and a scientist. He was a busy guy. Good thing he only needed five hours of sleep a night.

The night before our Monticello tour Felix got very little sleep in his pack and play. He was very tired. So, instead of wrangling him through the house, Nate and I took turns. One of us took Beckett into the house, where he sat in an umbrella stroller and played the iPad while the adult enjoyed the tour. The other parent stayed outside with Felix, who was a mess. Then we switched places.

I really enjoyed my tour. Jefferson's home is very interesting. It's full of inventions, like the polygraph that made a copy as he wrote. He had a special reading stand that could hold five books at a time. I think that would have been handy when I was writing my dissertation.

Jefferson was very into octagons. The dome of Monticello sits on an octagon, and some of the rooms are octagonal as well. Jefferson was also very into conserving space, so he placed beds into nooks in the wall. Below Jefferson's bed spans the space between two rooms. Above in the circles is where he stored all of his out of season clothing.

source - not my photo. No pictures allowed inside. Check out this article for more pictures of the interior.

Madison often visited Jefferson. They lived close to one another and were good friends. He didn't find his bed quite so comfortable. It was also in a wall alcove which did not allow for good air circulation in the summer. Jefferson had 12 grandchildren living with him at Monticello. It was interesting to imagine the house full of children.

One thing that all the houses had in common was that the kitchens and serving rooms were essentially a long corridor underneath the house. This is the serving area under Monticello.

Felix fell asleep in his stroller while Nate and Beckett were touring the house. 

We walked back down the hill to the visitor's center.

Jefferson's grave.

After our tour of Jefferson's house, we thought, "why not visit James Monroe's house too?" Monroe lived at Ash Lawn-Highland, only two miles from Monticello. In fact, Jefferson selected the Monroe house site and sent gardeners from Monticello to start the orchards. Jefferson wanted his friend Monroe to live close by.

Monroe's house is quite a bit smaller than Jefferson's or Madison's, but the tour was extremely interesting. Monroe was our fifth president. Apparently he was a man of action. The tour guide said, "If you want an idea beautifully expressed in writing, ask Jefferson. If you need logic to back up your idea, ask Madison. But, if you want to do something with an idea, ask Monroe." For example, Jefferson always gets credit for the Louisiana Purchase, but it was actually Monroe who bought the land. He was in France as Jefferson's envoy to negotiate access to the Mississippi via New Orleans when Napoleon offered to sell the Louisiana territory. This was very unexpected, and Monroe obviously couldn't get a message back to Jefferson, so he bought the land.

Beckett in front of Monroe's statue.

Monroe also was the only president besides George Washington to run unopposed. He was very popular, and his presidency was called "The Era of Good Feelings." His Monroe Doctrine formed the cornerstone of America's foreign policy up to the present day. The tour also featured lots of interesting stories about Monroe and Napoleon. Their children were very good friends.

Monroe, like Jefferson and Madison, was in debt after his presidency. (Being president did not pay well. Or at all.) Unlike the other two, he sold his house and paid off his debts.

A common theme in all the tours was the issue of slavery. All the men had enslaved workers running their lands and homes, and all three were very troubled about it, but, for all their accomplishments, could not figure out how to solve that problem. It would have to be dealt with by future generations.

Our final stop on this presidential architectural tour was the University of Virginia. Jefferson designed the University's Rotunda and the surrounding buildings.

He was clearly very inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.

Like the houses, the Rotunda has a service corridor below ground.

On the grounds at the University of Virginia.

We have now been to 4 of the 5 first presidents' homes. I think we might need to visit John Adams's house too.

P.S. We visit George Washington's Mount Vernon: here and here.

Presidential Houses - Part 1, Montpelier

Ever since we moved to Maryland we have been talking about going to Monticello. This October we finally made that happen. But why settle for just one Presidential house when you can have three?

We began our tour of Presidential homes at the home of James Madison, Montpelier.

Madison was our fourth president, and he is also known as the Father of the Constitution. He spent much of his life studying governments and helping to form our fledgling nation. We owe much of the Constitution to his ideas. Madison was the author of many of the Federalist papers which helped spur voters to ratify the Constitution. He also introduced the Bill of Rights.

Madison's house has had an interesting life. It started out fairly modest and then grew. At one point it was a duplex with Madison's parents living on one side of the house and James and Dolley living on the other. Jefferson's Monticello inspired Madison to put the portico on the house, and Jefferson designed the entryway that you see below.

Our tour guide at Montpelier. She was so awesome.

Madison met Dolley in Washington when he was serving in Congress. After he became president, Dolley really helped to define what the role of the First Lady would be. She was apparently very politically savvy. Madison was the president during the War of 1812, and Dolley also gets the credit for saving the White House's big portrait of George Washington before the British burned the capital.

Madison had an amazing view from his front door.

After Madison died the home fell into disrepair. Madison was in debt when he died, partially because the presidents at this early period in the country's history had to fund everything themselves--their travel, the White House parties. It was expensive to be the president. Currently the home is being restored to its 1836 state. The architectural restoration is complete and they are working on furnishing  the house. You can go down to the archeological site to see what new, old things are being discovered.

Beckett and Felix hanging out in the temple.

This is Madison's outdoor study. I insisted on calling it a folly. It fits perfectly into the tradition of 18th century gardens and landscaping.  I guess it wasn't purely decorative because they did keep all their ice far underneath the temple. Apparently Dolley really liked oyster ice cream. This was in the very early days of ice cream.

The Annie duPont Formal Gardens just behind the house are stunning.

We then took a walk through the James Madison Landmark Forest. It was a bizarrely warm October weekend. It looked like fall, but it felt like summer.

In 1901 William and Annie duPont purchased Montpelier. (Yes those duPonts.) They enlarged the house significantly and preserved the grounds. Big horse people, they built a race track that still hosts horse races today. They also convinced the railroad to build a Montpelier stop so that William could commute to Delaware. Their last surviving heir willed the house to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

B in front of another train station.

We loved visiting Montpelier. The tour was superb. The kids survived it. The grounds were pretty, quiet, and peaceful. 

After our tour of Madison's home we drove into Charlottesville. There we got everyone ice cream (but not oyster ice cream) for good behavior in the big house.

B ate some too, but Felix eating ice cream is cuter.

P.S. Interested in the War of 1812? Trips to Fort McHenry here, here, and here.