Just passing on some sad news...
Indiana High School State Champ killed in Afghanastan
Copied from IndianaRunner.commessage board:
Not that it matters, but he was 4th in XC his senior year in 15:14, and 16th his Junior year with a 15:45. He won the 3200 his senior year with a 9:20.
Copied from IndyStar.com:
Southwestern High grad is killed in Afghanistan
Sgt. Jeremy Wright, who went on to run at Wabash College, died on patrol near Kabul.
By Diana Penner
January 4, 2005
Even in a war setting, Sgt. Jeremy Robert Wright found a way to pursue his passion: He ran, up mountains, in Afghanistan.
A cross country and long-distance track star, Wright, 31, was killed Monday in that war-torn nation. A member of the 1st Special Forces Group, based in Fort Lewis, Wash., he was patrolling in a Humvee near Kabul when the vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
Jeremy Wright
A 1992 graduate of Southwestern High School in Shelby County and 1996 graduate of Wabash College, Wright is at least the third Hoosier killed in Afghanistan since U.S. forces were deployed there in 2001.
Wright enlisted in the Army about 2 1/2 years ago while living in Colorado and was deployed to Afghanistan only eight weeks ago. One of his college friends and fellow runners, Roger Busch, had communicated with Wright frequently via e-mail, most recently on Thursday.
Wright's spirits were pretty good, and he had been allowed to go off-post to run in the mountains, Busch said from Iowa.
"He said how jealous he was because it was January, when snowshoe-racing season really starts," Busch said.
Always looking for a challenge, Wright had added snowshoe racing to his repertoire, competing in five-kilometer and 10-kilometer races in the snow. He also won the Pikes Peak Ascent, a 13.32-mile race near Colorado Springs, up to an elevation of more than 14,000 feet, in 1998 and 1999.
Wright was Indiana's 3,200-meter high school champion in 1992 at Southwestern and was a two-time All-American in cross country at Wabash, where he won seven Indiana Collegiate Athletic Conference distance-running championships and was a member of the school's Athletics Hall of Fame.
He was a serious runner and an excellent student who attended Wabash on a four-year academic scholarship and graduated with a chemistry degree -- with honors. But he also had a wacky side, and even in their sadness, friends had to smile and even laugh as they recalled the wiry blond.
There was the hair: sometimes short, sometimes long, sometimes braided and sometimes dyed attention-getting colors.
"It was just to let people know that we were there," chuckled Busch, who along with runner Scott Gall was one of the Three Amigos of Wabash, dubbed so by track and cross country coach Rob Johnson.
"It was a lot of fun to coach them," Johnson said. "I called them my van team, because all I had to do was make sure I got the van there, and then one of the three of them would win."
When he won the 1999 Pikes Peak race, according to an online report of The Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs, Wright wore a pair of hoop earrings and a stud in his tongue. Johnson called Wright impish and playful, known for his pranks.
Wright pursued a master's degree in chemistry at the University of Wyoming, but just shy of finishing the program, he decided he didn't want to work as a chemist. His aunt, Jody Isley, said he decided to enlist in the Army partly because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks and partly to find some direction in his life.
Wright is survived by his father, Dale Wright, mother and stepfather, Jackie and William Nickel, all of Shelby County; and sister Alison Wright, of Colorado. Funeral arrangements are pending.