2026 CVR Awards Banquet
CVR’s Annual Awards Banquet Highlights
The club’s 2026 awards banquet was held on January 29 at Montpelier’s Capitol Plaza hotel, for the second year in a row. The awards dinner is an opportunity to take stock of the prior year, celebrate its members’ many accomplishments, reward volunteers for their critical support, and look at what’s in store this year. Attendance was much more robust than last year, thanks to a mid-winter snowstorm arriving days before the event, rather than the day of.
David Ellerson Volunteer Award
This award, given annually for the past 8 years, recognizes a member (or members) for their significant contributions to volunteering. Named for David Ellerson, a longtime club member and supporter who was known for being a finish line stalwart, providing key volunteer help and medical services for many years.
From nominator Darrel Lasell: This Member joined the club in 2019, and is still an active runner. To show their support this person is a CVRRace director and volunteers with registration and timing at several races; I also shared an anecdote about this person, one year while supporting her sister and spectating at Berlin Pond 5-Miler—when more volunteers were needed, she gladly jumped in to help with timing. It is also noticed how much she does as Race Director picking up the duties after the Covid shutdown, going on 5 years now.
From Awards Committee member Anne Treadwell: The Mutt Strut was my first volunteer experience as a CVR member when I moved here three years ago. This member puts on such a well-organized and festive event, soliciting many dog-themed prizes and making sure there’s water and treats for the dogs as well as the humans, researching worthy beneficiaries and making everyone, runners and volunteers, feel welcome and valued, dog people or not! It’s also great to see her warm smile at many other events, volunteering and spectating!
We are proud to present this year’s David Ellerson Volunteer of the Year Award to Maryellen Copping.
Spirit of the Club Award
20 years ago, The Spirit of the Club Award was established to recognize members of CVR who particularly stand out in their efforts toward the success of CVR. Sometimes it is for longevity of effort or positive energy, sometimes for an intensive effort in a shorter period of time. There is no set criteria, but we know CVR spirit when we see it. CVR is proud to have such a great group of members volunteering and keeping the club healthy and growing.
This year’s recipient has been with the club 6 years as a member, and ran their first CVR race virtually in 2021.This person has run many CVR races since, but had also been sidelined by some injuries. But that didn’t stop this member from actively participating and helping the club out by enthusiastically, and passionately tackling tasks that are needed to keep the club running smoothly. She coordinated Winter Group Runs. And then stepped forward to be President when it was needed. She has done a superlative job in this role with CVR News and Notes, running meetings and generally making sure things are getting done at a time when races and other activities engaged in by CVR are at an all-time high. She also became more involved in Capital City Stampede last year as a co-director and headed up the timing crew at the New Year’s Eve 5k. One other noteworthy characteristic is her ability to actually have meetings last (almost) precisely at one hour, after which the runners typically begin to get restless. She’s so competent we should probably have let her write this speech! But we will give her a break tonight. It is with great honor that we present the 2026 CVR Spirit Of The Club Award to President of Central Vermont Runners Club, Heather Tomlins.
CVR/ORO Race Series Results – 2025
CVR’s annual race series, co-sponsored by Onion River Outdoors (ORO), motivates many members to get out to as many races as possible each year and compete against others in their age groups for race times. The best part about the series? Although time is a factor, it tends to reward participation over results, so anyone can be a contender if you (a) volunteer at least once and (b) show up enough. The 2025 race series age group winners and runners up managed both (a) and (b) in spades, plus some special sauce when time comes into play – and were rewarded for their efforts with a certificate and gift card from ORO:
| Female | Winner |
| Ages 20-29 (600 point winner!) | Addie Hedges |
| Ages 30-39 (600 point winner!) | Jessica Ball |
| Ages 40-49 (600 point winner!) | Anna Milkowski |
| Ages 50-59 | Anne Treadwell |
| Ages 60-69 (600 point winner!) | Donna Smyers |
| Ages 70-79 (600 point winner!) | Elizabeth McCarthy |
| Nonbinary | Winner |
| Ages 60-69 (600 point winner!) | Sarah Knutson |
| Male | Winner |
| Ages 20-29 (600 point winner!) | Luke Miller |
| Ages 30-39 (600 point winner!) | Peter Maurais |
| Ages 40-49 (600 point winner!) | Maxfield English |
| Ages 50-59 (600 point winner!) | Sean Sheehan |
| Ages 60-69 (600 point winner!) | Eric Morse |
| Ages 70-79 | Tim Hogeboom |
| Ages 80-89 | Bob Murphy |
And not to be forgotten, our runners-up among all age groups:
- Peter Luyckx (598.9 points!)
- Patrick Reimer
- Merill Creagh
- Stephen Brown
- Ann Bushey
- Mack Gardner-Morse
Don’t forget we have adjusted the eligibility rules slightly for 2026 which may open up more competition for slots, so hope to see you all out there this year!.
The Joe Merrill Awards
These awards are given entirely based on Joe’s whim, so if you want to see your name in lights next year, start running with Joe and he will probably come up with one for you! We hope that everyone enjoyed the back stories behind these awards as much as the winners did:
- Excessive Participation Award: a.k.a., the Darrel Lasell Award, given to the CVR member who showed up in 2025 as much as – or possibly more often than – Darrel, which is a feat! – There was a three-way tie this year between Peter Maurais, Randy Laprade, and Jaime Gadwah
- Bob Murphy Award: given to the CVR member who most exemplifies Bob’s steadiness and consistency, on and off the course – for the 2nd year, this award went to someone who we all in the club rely on for, well, everything – Donna Smyers
- What About Waterbury? So often, forgotten on the way between Montpelier and everywhere else along I-89, we don’t think about Waterbury as the place to be for running pursuits. Well, Matt and Heidi Duggan have been working hard to change that, hosting many runs and events there to prove to us all that Waterbury is where it’s at!
- Not A Thena – awarded to Addie Hedges for decidedly not fitting in the Clydesdale category in a non-CVR event last year!
- Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor – awarded to Jessica Ball for being the latest in a line of Winter Group Run coordinators who seem to mysteriously last only one season, much like the fabled faculty spot at Hogwarts. Let’s hope Jessica is the one to break the curse!
- Pleased to Meet You – awarded to George Moltz for being the friendliest participant out there!
- Comeback Kid – awarded to Tim Hogeboom for his relentless pursuit of the comeback this past year after some health setbacks. He crushed it!
- 100th Marathon – awarded to Tim Noonan for, you guessed it, running his 100th marathon in 2025! Congrats Tim, maybe we can set your next goal at 200?
We hope that everyone enjoyed the evening and is ready for 2026! Congratulations to all the winners, runners up, participants, volunteers, and members for being part of this club and making it so special. See you on the roads and trails!
And thank you again to the event and awards committee members who made the dinner and program possible – Merill Creagh, Fab Pattison, Jessica Ball, Joe Merrill, Bob Murphy, Anne Treadwell, Darrel Lasell, and Donna Smyers (for the clocks!).
Sincerely,
Madam President, Heather Tomlins
Awards Banquet Gallery
