Lake Highlands Junior High School will start its 1995 track season this month with a national champion on its team.
Eighth-grader Shea Nero won a gold medal last summer in the 400-meter dash at the Arco Jesse Owens Nationals for track and field, held at the Olympic Training Facility in Pasadena, Calif. Nero competed against top runners from around the country in the girls 13- to 14 age group.
Nero took first at city, state and southwest regional meets to qualify for the Owens Nationals, a competition named after the American athlete who won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics in track and field.
Both Nero and her father, Bob, who traveled with Shea to the tournament, were surprised she did so well. “I thought I’d probably get third,” Nero says.
“No matter what, I was going to cheer as loud as I could and give Shea a hug at the end, but she told me she was going to try and win, and she did,” Bob says. “I made a fool out of myself, which surprised me because I’m usually cool about these sort of things.”
Nero participated in her first track and field meet season last spring as a se