This outdoor season, just in Oregon, there are 15 high schoolers under 8:25 for 3000m or 9:00 for 3200m. There are also 9 high schoolers under 4:10 for the full mile.
These top times look a lot like California, which has 17 under 9:00 and 8 under 4:10 (for 1600). California also has OVER 9 TIMES Oregon's population.
Has any state put up per-capita numbers like this before? There's a HS running boom going on right now, but there aren't many athletes of this caliber anywhere in the US.