CVR’s Annual Awards Banquet Highlights
The club’s 2025 awards banquet was held on February 6 at Montpelier’s recently re-opened Capitol Plaza hotel. 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 less than expected due to the arrival of an unfortunately timed mid-winter snowstorm, which snarled roads up enough to keep many members at home. Thanks to emcee Joe Merrill, the awards program was a laughter-filled occasion, punctuated by recognizing and sending healing thoughts to several CVR members not in attendance due to health challenges.
David Ellerson Volunteer Award
This award, given annually for the past 7 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. This year’s recipient is Fabienne Pattison, who exemplifies all that it means to be a great race volunteer. Her enthusiasm, dedication, and ability to help and coordinate other volunteers improved race quality and participant experiences across multiple races this year. We thank you sincerely for your critical help, Fab! Congratulations!
Spirit of the Club Award
The Spirit of the Club is a feeling, a “know it when you see it” magic – every year awarded to a member or members who exhibit that special something that makes this club such a success. This year’s winner has been a CVR member for just 7 years, but he has generated an amazing history in a relatively short time. Most notable is that he is the unquestionable winner of the highest participation award year after year. This year, he was able to toss out his lowest 5 CVR/ORO series results, having completed 11 of the series races. That tied his 2022 record and beat his 2023 record of 10 events and 4 discards. Nobody else comes close to that record of participation in CVR events. Not only does he participate, but he also contributes to the club in many ways. He smoothly succeeded Manny as our unofficial club photographer and CVR Selfie King—documenting happy runners at nearly all Tuesday Fun Runs, Saturday WGR’s, and other events. He co-manages the CVR Facebook page. He acts as an Ambassador representing CVR in the Upper Valley Running Club, the Runderachievers in Northfield and the NE 65+ Runners Club. He has stepped up as a Vermont Rep on the Board of Directors of the NE 65+ club. As a volunteer, he shows up super early to mark courses for race directors so that he can volunteer and still run in the races. There is no doubt that Darrel Lasell has shown the Spirit of the Club. And we are happy to give him the award for 2025.
CVR/ORO Race Series Results – 2024
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 2024 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 | Katie Hulbert |
| Ages 40-49 | Jaime Gadwah |
| Ages 50-59 (600 point winner!) | Anne Treadwell |
| Ages 60-69 (600 point winner!) | Donna Smyers |
| Ages 70-79 (600 point winner!) | Elizabeth McCarthy |
| Male | Winner |
| Ages 0-19 | Andy Sheehan |
| Ages 20-29 (600 point winner!) | Luke Miller |
| Ages 30-39 (600 point winner!) | Peter Maurais |
| Ages 40-49 | Stephen Brown |
| Ages 50-59 | Peter Luyckx |
| Ages 60-69 (600 point winner!) | Jim Flint |
| Ages 70-79 (600 point winner!) | Tim Hogeboom |
| Ages 80-89 | Bob Murphy |
And not to be forgotten, our runners-up among all age groups:
- Cheryl Lasell
- Darrel Lasell
- Sean Sheehan
- Joe Merrill
- Mack Gardner-Morse
- John Valentine
Let that be a motivator if you sat out any races thinking showing up didn’t matter – you could challenge anyone in your age group this year! Or likewise, if you showed up a lot but didn’t volunteer and were therefore ineligible in 2024 – there are ample opportunities in the race calendar to help out.
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! This year we had a few lucky contenders for Joe’s largesse, and hope that everyone enjoyed the back stories behind these awards as much as the winners did:
- Honeymoon with CVR Award: given to the couple who cut their own honeymoon short to get back to Vermont for a race series appearance (which seemed to work out for them both this year!) – Addie Hedges & Luke Miller
- I Took That Personally Award: given to the one person who Joe didn’t expect would show up and beat him in his age category at a race Joe was half-heartedly training for, in the spirit of Michael Jordan – Scott Richardson
- Tim Hogeboom is Glad I Live in Burlington Award: given to a CVR member who, by virtue of his residence being just far enough away to limit his participation to challenge Tim for race series status – Gordan MacFarland
- Excessive Participation Award: a.k.a., the Darrel Lasell Award, given to the CVR member who showed up in 2024 as much as – or possibly more often than – Darrel, which is a feat! – Peter Maurais
- Bob Murphy Award: given to the CVR member who most exemplifies Bob’s steadiness and consistency, on and off the course – the inaugural award went to the one person who could meet this criteria above all – Bob Murphy himself!
- Forever Young Award: given to the CVR member who managed to (perhaps inadvertently) take advantage of the race series rules by participating just prior to a milestone birthday, and thus allowed Joe one more season of not having to complete against him – Sean Sheehan
We hope that everyone enjoyed the evening and is ready for 2025! 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!
Sincerely,
Madam President, Heather Tomlins
1 As a note, although the club has been recognizing non-binary race participants across events over the last few years, until the club voted in late 2024, we did not have a separate race series category to include them. Starting with 2025, the race series age group categories will include male, female, and non-binary participants to be eligible for awards. So, to our non-binary members, keep getting out there and joining any races you can because we are excited to celebrate you at next year’s awards dinner!
Awards Dinner Photos
