PERKINSVILLE — En route to winning the inaugural Lace Up for Laura Memorial 5K Walk/Run on Saturday morning, Mark Elmore realized that most of the 300-plus people following him to the finish knew the woman who inspired the event.
“I wish I was one of them,” the 53-year-old Bethel resident said after christening the 3.1-mile course in 20 minutes and 29 seconds. “But I felt the presence of this Laura all along the way. I said, ‘What a turnout for this!’ You can just feel the energy here.”
A year and one day after 36-year-old Perkinsville resident Laura Cody McNaughton died in a head-on collision on Interstate 91 in Hartland, that energy generated at least $15,000 for an annual scholarship to a Springfield, Vt.-area high school senior studying for a career in a caring profession, particularly public health.
Organizers estimated that about 400 racers — between the 5K itself and a half-mile fun run for kids beforehand — took part in the event.
Both the turnout and the money raised far exceeded what Lisa Gleeson, of Springfield, Vt., dared to hope for while helping Laura’s husband, Ethan McNaughton, promote the event.
“It was an unbelievable outpouring of support,” Gleeson, a longtime running buddy of Laura and family friend, said while dismantling and packing up one of the registration tables. “Once we decided to do something like this, people were coming up to us, asking how they could help. Laura made such an impact on our community. We were grateful to have an outlet to put energy into, to send to Laura.
“She would have been proud to see us all today.”
“Us all” included not just organizers and family members but many of Laura’s teachers, coaches and fellow graduates from nearby Springfield High School, where she ran cross country and track and emerged as valedictorian of the Class of 2000.
Many of those former Cosmos, including Ascutney residents Jason Larochelle (Class of 1999) and Lindsay Alldredge Larochelle (Class of 2002), were thrilled when Laura returned to the area with Ethan and son Isaac in 2012. In addition to throwing herself into public-health projects in five years as a district director of the Vermont Department of Health, she served on the Weathersfield School Board and the board of the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union.
“She was always a really good person, very considerate,” Jason Larochelle said, before finishing the race fifth overall. “When she got back, our kids went to school together at Weathersfield, and I’ve coached her kids in sports.
“We’ve definitely stuck together.”
Added Lindsay Larochelle: “I’m not really that surprised that all these people came out. It could be pouring right now, and people would still show up.”
Ethan McNaughton, who married Laura in 2007 after a decade of dating, nevertheless worried a bit about the rain that fell overnight and then early in the morning.
“Then it cleared, and it was perfect,” he said. The first raindrops fell as he handed out the last awards and door prizes.
It took a little more doing to hold back his own tears while he ran the race with his sons, with his siblings and nieces and nephews, and with a mob of friends and neighbors, on the back roads where Laura had trained for years — she was preparing for her first marathon at the time of her death.
And more than once, Ethan welled up and needed to gather himself while watching the fulfillment of a project that began not long after a celebration of Laura’s life at the Weathersfield Meeting House last July. In particular, he sang the praises of Gleeson for promoting the run through social media, old-fashioned flyers, and designing promotional banners and T-shirts adapted from a photo of Laura running the Covered Bridges Half Marathon a few years ago.
“Many, many people offered to volunteer, and the town was awesome in supporting us in the sheer logistics of closing the roads — the police, the fire department, the highway department,” Ethan McNaughton said. “As much as the goal was to raise money for the scholarships, the big goal was getting people together to celebrate Laura. I thought we might get 200 people to come out, and by (Friday) night we had 429 pre-registrations.”
While helping to check in those registrants early Saturday morning, Gleeson couldn’t help remembering the last time she ran with Laura: the 2018 Dirty 5K trail race in Hanover on Mother’s Day, seven weeks before the accident.
“She beat me by a minute and seven places,” Gleeson said. “She was the kind of person who wanted everybody to have fun, but she also had a competitive streak to her.
“I wish she’d been here to outrun me.”
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com or 603-727-3304.