LOWER LAKE — Before there was a Mike Perez running circles around the competition at Lower Lake High School, there was Ron Stone doing the exact same thing.
The two have never met, their running careers at the Southshore high school missing each other by nearly half a century. But they were the same person in almost every other respect. Both men loved running and winning and, to hear Forrest Gump say it, both had no idea running would take them as far as it did, with college scholarships sending each far from Lake County.
Stone, 63, now a Lakeport resident, hails from a running family that includes dad Newell, 87, mother Lois, 82, and siblings Mike, 60, and Tim, 53, both fine runners in their own right. He was inducted into the Santa Rosa Junior College Hall of Fame last April, following in the footsteps of his father, who was inducted many years earlier and whose photo was prominently displayed at the college for many years.
Until Perez came along last year and beat his record in the 800 meters, Stone”s time of 1 minute, 57.2 seconds (in the old 880-yard dash), set back in 1961, had stood countless challenges.
Stone recalls all too vividly what it was like to be a high school track athlete at Lower Lake back when John F. Kennedy sat behind the desk in the Oval Office, “I Fall to Pieces” by Patsy Cline was the No. 1 song in the country, and Neil Armstrong”s moonwalk was still some eight years away.
“Lower Lake didn”t have a track team,” Stone said. “We didn”t have any uniforms and there wasn”t a track to run on. I was the track team.”
Stone did receive permission to jog around the football field. He also made his own track on the family”s ranch outside of Lower Lake so that he could work out.
“My dad really didn”t want me to run,” Stone said. “I was a farm kid and he wanted me at home working on the ranch.”
But Stone”s dad certainly had a soft spot in his heart for running because Newell Stone had been a track star at SRJC, specializing in the 880.
With no track at Lower Lake, all of Stone”s meets took place on the road, at such venues at Lakeport, Kelseyville, Boonville, Willits and Ukiah.
Stone was fast … he could flat out fly … and no in the area came close to keeping up with him, which gives him something else in common with his modern-day counterpart Perez, who now runs for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
“I never had any competition locally,” Stone recalls. “When I finished a race, I could look across the track and see the rest of the pack.”
Until he reached the state qualifying meet at U.C. Berkeley, his best time in the 880 had been 1:58.2, a time he achieved at Lakeport. At Berkeley, he was clocked at 1:57.2 the Lower Lake record until Perez beat it but it wasn”t quite good enough to reach the state finals.
“I missed going to state by one stride,” Stone said, the painful memory still alive and well in his mind.
While begrudging modern-day runners nothing, Stone said he can”t help but wonder what it would have been like to have some of the advantages his modern-day counterparts enjoy today, such as running shoes that fit.
“Lower Lake didn”t even have uniforms,” Stone said. “I used a pair of hand-me-down track shoes. Bob James, a retired Lower Lake teacher, was the one who gave me a pair of his old track shoes, but they were a size-and-a-half too small.”
Moving on to Santa Rosa Junior College after graduating from Lower Lake, Stone was “Mr. Do Everything” for the Bear Cubs, competing in a variety of events as needed.
“I started off by anchoring the quarter-mile relay team, but I also ran the mile, the 880 and I anchored the mile relay.”
Stone recalls being a raw recruit at SRJC.
“I was 17 as a senior and didn”t turn 18 until the fall,” Stone said. “I was an underdeveloped kid, a ranch bum who didn”t know anything. I didn”t have a routine for training. I didn”t even know about interval work until I got to Santa Rosa.”
Stone also laughs when he recalls his preferred “sports drink” of the day.
“Gatorade didn”t exist and neither did all the other energy drinks runners use today,” Stone said. “I ate Wheaties and drank Kool-Aid (orange being Stone”s flavor of choice).”
Nevertheless, Stone”s days at SRJC (1963-65) were a blaze of wins and glory for the most part, though his freshman and sophomore years were interrupted by injuries that sidelined him for most of 1964.
“I lived in a whirlpool that year,” Stone said of injuries to his Achilles tendon and hamstrings.
As a freshman at SRJC in 1963, Stone, a newcomer to the sport of cross country, won the individual title at the Golden Valley Conference Championships while also leading the Bear Cubs to the team title. When track season rolled around, Stone captured the 880 and the mile at the conference championships.
In the spring of 1965, Stone rebounded from his injuries the year before with a vengeance. He not only had the top 880 time in the GVC, but in the state. His most memorable race that season was against Bill Skrivars of San Mateo, who was considered the top runner in Northern California and who had already run 1:53.9 that year.
“His (Skrivars”) coach told him there wouldn”t be any competition,” Stone said. “I ran on Bill”s shoulder until there were 300 yards to go. It was at that time that I sprinted past him and finished well ahead in 1:51.9. I knew then that I was capable of winning in nearly every race.”
At one point during the 1965 season, Stone even had the fastest 880 time in the country.
Closer to home, at SRJC, Stone set the school record in the 440 (44.9 seconds) even though he wasn”t a 440 specialist and he won a 220 race in his first-and-only attempt at that distance. He also anchored the 440- and mile-relay teams.
“Points for the team were important, not fast times. It wasn”t until the Northern California Trials that I was able to concentrate on the 880-yard run.”
Stone won every 880 race he participated in until the state meet.
“I let myself get boxed in by other runners and couldn”t get out,” said Stone, who still managed to finish third in 1:50.8.
After SRJC, Stone received a full-ride scholarship to Brigham Young University in Utah, where he continued his running career while also majoring in physical education (he also minored in biology and safety education). While at BYU, Stone was the university”s top 880 runner and he logged a personal-best 1:50.4 in the 880.
Before he was hired by the U.S. Forest Service, where he spent 25 years before retiring, Stone helped coach the Olympus High School track team of Salt Lake City to a state title in 1968. It was quite a feat considering “they hadn”t won anything before that year,” Stone said.
“Those kids were so great,” Stone said. “I still ran with them even though I wasn”t in running shape. My last day there they had a party for me and they presented me with a pair of black onyx cufflinks. I still have them. It was a little thing but I seem to remember little things like that.”
Stone and wife Alice, married 35 years, have four children. After he retired from the Forest Service, Stone started up his own small business of transporting collectible cars throughout the continental 48 states and Canada.
Though his running career is long over, Stone is very proud of the fact that both he and brothers Tim and Mike are still ranked among the top runners in the Redwood Empire in various events.
Mike, a 2-miler, followed in the footsteps of his dad and older brother Ron and attended SRJC. Tim, a miler, went to Yuba College and then Chico,
Stone still has many fond memories from his running days, not the least of which was the “team bus” that transported the Stone brothers to and from their meet.
That bus was the family”s 1959 Chevy Impala, a car that Ron still owns.
“They damn near wore that thing out taking us to and from meets,” Stone recalls.
Though he has a lifetime of accomplishments to look back on, Stone says that the records he set were never as important to him as winning.
“I didn”t run for records, I didn”t care about them,” Stone said. “I ran to win.”
