Minors: Latest To Excel At St. Johnsbury Sports
Bermuda’s Dage Minors, a senior boarding student at St. Johnsbury Academy in Vermont, raced to three first place finishes, then helped his team win another at the Vermont high school indoor track championship meet, held on Saturday [Feb 16] at Norwich University in Northfield.
Named Vermont’s Boy Athlete of The Year during an award ceremony following the meet, Minors won the 1,600-meter run, covering the distance in 4:34.37; 1,000-meter run (2:43.26), and 600-meter run (1:25.64), then ran the anchor leg for the Academy’s 1st place 4X400-meter relay team.
Minors’ also ruled the championship meet’s 1,000-meter event in 2011 and 2012. The teenage track star is among the latest group in the long line of students from Bermuda who for two decades have been leaving their marks on the athletic fields at St. Johnsbury Academy, a private Independent boarding school in northeastern Vermont serving students in grades 9-12.
Nekai Durant, a 1990 graduate, set school and Vermont state records in the 200-meter dash, and Bayon Robinson, who graduated in 1998, was a two-time (1997 and 1998) state champion in the 800-meter run, as well as 1998 Vermont champion in the 400-meter.
Also sprinting to state championships were Lamont Simmons, a 1994 graduate, in the 400-meter run and Damon Ming, who graduated in 1997 after capturing the state title in the 100-meter.
Other recent sports standouts include 2010 graduate Tristan Smith, who was selected as a member of the Vermont All-star team for the 36th Annual Lions Club Twin State Soccer Cup match, then named the game’s Most Valuable Player; and 2007 graduates Tse Minors, selected to the 2005 and 2006 Vermont All-State field hockey teams; Korie Tucker, a member of the Vermont All-Region and All-State boys soccer teams; and Michael Pimentel, a 2006 Vermont All-Conference Football Team selection as a placekicker and defensive end.
Shosun Durham and Brian Fubler played major roles on the Academy’s track and field teams in 2012, helping the school win Vermont State Championships during both the indoor (winter) and outdoor (spring) seasons.
In 2007, the Academy honored its connection to the island by inviting Bermudian educational leader Esther Merle Swan Williams to deliver the Commencement Address for the school’s graduation ceremony. In 1958 Williams founded an advisory service to help send young Bermudians, especially black children, to summer camps and boarding schools.
More than 200 young people from Bermuda have attended the Academy because of her efforts, including some of the first international boarding students drawn to the school during the Academy’s rapid boarding school expansion in the early 1980s.
Williams’ granddaughter, Akira Robinson, was a member of 2007’s graduating Academy class.
