Houston Middle School’s track and field program has a pair of state champions.
At the 2025 Missouri Middle School Championships last Saturday at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, 7th-grader Oliver Choate won the Class 3A boys 1,600-meter run and 7th-grader Myles Copley took first in the Class 3A girls 800-meter run.
Choate topped a field of 27 runners with a time of 4:53.41, finishing close to 13 seconds ahead of the runner-up and setting the school record by more than 6 seconds. HMS 7th-grader Charlie Benoist placed 8th in the race.
Choate also placed third in the 800.
Meanwhile, Copley won the 800 with a time of 2:28.80, more than 5 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher and only about a half-second off the current Houston High School record. HMS 8th-grader Lyla Huffman placed fourth.
The pair also finished in the top-5 in the 1,600, with Copley taking second and Huffman fifth.
The HMS boys had two other top-10 finishes, with 8th-grader Tucker Venn finishing fifth in discus and placing 10th in the 200-meter dash.
The HMS girls picked up three more top-10s, with 8th-grader Millie Manier placing eighth in the long jump and seventh in pole vault, and 6th-grader Nola Manier taking eighth in pole vault.
Last fall, Choate and Copley both won middle school cross country state championships.
HMS athletes earned 11 medals at the state meet.
“We had a great showing,” said head coach Mike Tottingham. “I cannot say enough good things about all of our performances, and if this group of runners sticks together and works as hard as they are now the sky’s the limit for the future of Houston track and field.”