Although Silo High School doesn’t have its own track and field facility, that hasn’t stopped the track program from sending participants all the way to state. And this year marks the third consecutive year to have at least one Rebel representing Bryan County in the final meet of the year.
Sports presented by Indian Nation Wholesale.
Silo had eight athletes make the trip to Catoosa to compete in the Class 3A State Meet. The Rebels competed in the girls 4×800 relay, boys 4×800 relay, two boys ran the 1-mile, a girl ran the 1-mile, one boy in the 800m and one boy in the 2-mile.
Ashton Davis finished fifth in the 800m, with a time of 2:02 which broke a school record that had stood at the school for the 10 years of its existence.
Lewis Cross set a personal record (PR) in the boys 1-mile and placed eighth and Brooklynn Redwine the same in the girls 1-mile run. Cross also set a PR in the 2-mile and the boys 4×800 posted a PR, too.
Maggie Rose is in her third year at the helm of both the track and cross country programs at Silo. In her tenure, the school has gone six-for-six, sending representatives to the state level in each sport in all three years.
But the program has achieved these accomplishments without a facility to call home.
“We make do with what we can,” Rose said. “We try to go at least once or twice a week over to the Durant complex, if they have it open. Kingston has also been generous and they’ve let us use their track before and the same with Durant, they’ve been generous.”
However, the Rebels don’t always have to go too far from campus to get work in.
“We are gladly brought to you by Silo Restland. We are grateful that they let us use their graveyard.
“It’s a little over 400 meters. It’s about one third of a mile, so we kind of get over-training in.”
Rose said the kids sometimes run in front of the school and at other times run in the back area of the school by the ag barn.
“Just anywhere we can get running in, we’re there. Our favorite trip is starting from the graveyard, all the way around the school to the water tower by the baseball field and then you come back down. And that’s what my distance kids like to run.”
Rose came to Silo after being a member of the award-winning track team at Oklahoma Baptist. She took over the program from Bobbie Pratt, who got the program going a decade ago, and she said it is progressing with each year.
“Miss Pratt started things off very strong,” Rose said. “She had a couple of years of a good reign and then the last couple of years were when COVID hit and it just kind of went downhill. When I was offered the job, she just said she wanted someone strong to get it going again and I feel like I’ve continued that legacy.
“Every year we’ve progressed. This year, I had two all-stars, my seniors, and then we had our first all-stater in a long time and that was Lewis Cross in cross country.”