Mileage Club
Oct 10, 2024
Mileage Club
West Valley elementary schools have a long tradition of organizing “Mileage Club” during the lunch time recess. At Cottonwood, the PTSA organizes an annual “Dash for Cash” event to raise funds for the awards that students receive for Mileage Club.
Cottonwood Principal, Michelle Siguenza, explained, “On Friday, September 20, 2024, our wonderful Mileage Club PTSA volunteers and Dash for Cash Chair Person held an assembly to kick off Mileage Cub and Dash for Cash. The top runners from last year performed a skit based on the Olympian Clayton Young.”
Siguenza continued, “The students went through Clayton’s running career, starting in 4th grade in Mileage Club at Cottonwood. His family moved to American Fork, Utah, right before he began high school. He ran for American Fork High School and he was a champion.”
Siguenza explained, “Clayton then went on to run for BYU, where he kept winning. He and his teammate, Conner Mantz, took 1st and 2nd in the Olympic Trials and they were the only two Americans to qualify for the Marathon.”
Last summer, at the Olympics in Paris, teammates Conner Mantz and Clayton Young finished in the Top Ten for the Marathon. Mantz finished in 8th place with a time of 2:08:14 and Young finished in 9th place with a time of 2:08:44.
According to a news report by NBC Sports, Clayton Young still carried his elementary school keychain with Mileage Club charms when he was training for the Olympics.
Siguenza concluded, “The skit was a fun way to kick off Cottonwood’s 2024/25 Mileage Club and Dash for Cash.”