Please join Club Northwest, Saturday March 8th, for a brief meeting, dinner, a celebration of our past year and a kick-off for the next! Special guest speaker: Laurel James, founder of Super Jock 'n Jill
Laurel James was a divorced mother of five boys when she took in a boarder in her Lake Forest Park home -- Club Northwest's (and later Mead's and currently Gonzaga's) Pat Tyson. Before she knew it, Pat's Oregon connections with the fledgling Nike company led to a vacant 'very old' service station at Green Lake becoming Super Jock 'n Jill. Laurel immediately got the store involved in the running community by sponsoring the 1975 Seattle Marathon, which Club Northwest was operating at the time. Laurel drove her SJJ big old yellow van in front of many local races, including the Seafair run. In 1977, she convinced the Marathon committee -- which was growing by leaps and bounds -- to separate its halfmarathon, which moved to Redmond and became (after several name changes) the SJJ Halfmarathon. In 1982, it was her leadership which encouraged the brand new Pacific Northwest Association of TAC/USA (now USA Track & Field) to make a bid for the first Women's Marathon Trials in Olympia. Her nickname became "the godmother of Northwest running," including a Northwest Runner cover. She later retired from Jock 'n Jill, turning the business over to son Chet. Her voice can still be heard at several races in the area as announcer. Special Thanks to:
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