“By their fruits, shall ye know them.”

On July 5th, 1970, folks in Eastport and Perry were educated to the meaning of "road race," which until then meant an auto race. It was on this day that 15 runners, led by a steady, strong, Ralph Thomas traversed the 7-mile long causeway, ending at the Eastport municipal pier. Until this day, local folks had no idea that a runner could complete a distance of over 7 miles. And just who was behind this event? It was a man who returned home to his native Perry that year and developed opportunities for runners of all ages to compete in a way that no one had ever done, or even dreamed of doing. His name is Dale Lincoln. And before it was all over, Lincoln would spend 32 years coaching, race directing, and inspiring people of all ages, rise to living legend status in his sport in Eastern Maine, and become the first resident of Washington County to be inducted into the Maine Running Hall of Fame in Nov. 2002.

Even at the time of the inaugural running of the Eastport race, neither Lincoln nor those watching could possibly comprehend the repercussions of that day, as youngsters looked on in wonderment and amazement at competitors who soon became their heroes, heroes they would emulate. And in their own pursuits of chasing their individual goals they would consequently enrich their lives and give them experiences they could one day look back to with pride.

Born on January 5, 1937, Lincoln grew up with a great love of the outdoors. There was much to keep him occupied: clamming, smelting, boating, working in the woods with his father, raking blueberries, riding his bike, passing the ball, and so on. He especially liked to run and enjoyed running with his younger sister, Ruth. "The days when we received new shoes both of us knew that the shoes made us run faster," said Lincoln. "Weather permitting, we raced in the yard every day." He had another competitor, too. "My Dad always finished ahead of me when we raced in the yard at home. I learned that it wasn't necessary to win a race in order to have fun." But there were no organized opportunities to do running in school.

Lincoln remembers one time when his 6th grade teacher, Mr. Keith Selwood, was reading about the Nation of Greece being victorious over the invading Persians in 490 BC, when Pheidippides ran 26 miles from Marathon to Athens. Mr. Se1wood added some personal information that was not in the history book. He used to live in Boston and each year he had watched the Boston Marathon. It was the first time Lincoln had ever heard of the event. Even though he liked to run, at age ten it seemed impossible to him that a person could run 26 miles. Lincoln's favorite sport was baseball. "I thought baseball was supposed to be my lifetime ambition," said Lincoln. "I started running on my own in high school to get in condition to play baseball." But he remembers being told by his parents to "run after dark so the neighbors won't think you're crazy."

Lincoln went on to college at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, and there he continued baseball and his running. The academy had no cross-country team, so he ran on his own. I would go out for a morning jog and before long five or six people were asking, "can we go with you?" He was happy to have their company. Most of these other boys had been on cross-country teams during high school. At Maine Maritime Academy members of the freshman class were ordered to stand at attention, with eyes straight ahead, for more than a half hour," said Lincoln. If they moved or blinked they were required to run ten laps on the track around the flagpole. It didn't take me long to learn that it was more fun to run than it was to stand in that torturous chow line. I ran laps before each meal."

Then in May 1956, on National Maritime Day, a 2-mile intra-mural race was organized by instructors John Hoctor and Edward Langlois. "A midshipman with a lot of cross- country experience crossed the finish line immediately ahead of me. The race was fun," said Lincoln. Finishing second place served only to motivate him to train harder. Later that summer there was a three-mile race held in Castine as part of the Fourth of July activities, organized by Mr. Langlois. Lincoln entered and took second again, but this time to a Castine high school junior named Harold Hatch who would within a year win the New England Interscholastic Cross Country Championship. "Hatch had beaten him by half a mile," said Lincoln.

The years passed by and during the early 1960's, Lincoln married Elsie Lee from Eastport and they moved to South Portland where he was employed at Southern Maine Vocational Technical Institute for three years. While there, Lincoln started up a cross-country program. As a coach, he became a pioneer in one special way, as he trained right alongside his runners. It didn't matter whether the workouts were distance or sprints, Lincoln was right there challenging and encouraging them. New to the sport of coaching, he learned as much from his runners as they learned from him. After three years, Lincoln returned to sea as a merchant marine engineer.

Then in 1968, in order to remain home with his young family, he made a career change which he never regretted. Most of the next 25 years he was a schoolteacher, but an engineering job in Boston allowed him to get serious about running. Once while commuting from Boston in February 1969, he picked up a hitchhiker. He was a Colby runner who encouraged him to get an AAU card and make an application for the Bos~on Marathon. He became very determined that he would someday run in it, and that day came in 1969. He would run at Boston three straight years, posting a best time of 3:35:27 in 1970.

"How well he looked after the run compared to the majority of runners," his wife Elsie remembers. "That probably was because he ran all the time and tried to convince me and others "it's fun to run."

Also during these years in the Portland area he started running in some of Roland Dyer's road races with the Maine Masters. One Sunday afternoon in 1969 at a Maine Masters race a new runner, Ralph Thomas, was at the starting line. "Ralph finished about 50 yards ahead of me," said Lincoln. "Ralph's running improved rapidly. It was the only race when we were both participants that I saw Ralph Thomas cross the finish line."

"Back then, every race I would meet Roland Dyer with his clipboard and automobile office. I admired how he organized the race, then was a participant in the race. The race would start, and Roland would move along and slowly pass me, then end up near the front of the race. A few nights I did interval work with him and his friends at the Expo track in Portland." In many ways, Dyer would become his mentor, and this would begin in 1970, when Lincoln took a teaching job in industrial arts at Woodland and moved back to his old stomping grounds. .

Soon afterward as the Fourth of July approached he had the perfect opportunity to bring road racing to Washington County. The 1st Annual Perry to Eastport Fourth of July 7-Mile Road Race drew a field of 15 runners. For the runners-to-be in Washington County, there would be much more to come.

It was also during this year that Lincoln started training with a Woodland native named Brian Manza, a Vietnam Veteran who as a schoolboy had won the state Class C Cross-County Championship. In the fall of 1970, the two decided to start a running club which they called the Sunrise County Roadrunners. It was the first running club founded in the state that was open to all people and the club remains the oldest running club in Maine today. Also, the Perry to Eastport 7-Miler is now the third oldest annual road race in the state. It wasn't long before Lincoln organized other races that would become annual events. He had a 7.2 miler in Calais in May, a 6-miler in Woodland in October in addition to the Eastport race as well as a 29-mile event the first week of April. In addition, he put on frequent weekend fun runs.

With a growing number of distance runners in the state, particularly in southern and central Maine, there were often not enough races in the state to satisfy their growing thirst for competition, and many of these runners often had to drive to southern New England to compete. So when they read in the sports page about Lincoln's races they were elated and thought nothing of driving three, four, or five hours to Calais or Eastport. From Gardiner came Ralph Thomas, from Orono came Frank Roberts, Will Deering, Walter Renaud and Rick Krause, from Yarmouth came Joe Dahl, and from Lamoine came one of Maine's pioneer women runners, Robin Emery.

Just as Roland Dyer had done, Lincoln ran in the races that he directed, quite a duel-feat, but he liked racing as much as anyone and directing a race was not going to stop him from competing. "Still dripping with sweat, he'd hand out the trophies and ribbons, pick up the clutter (usually by himself) and without fail, make plans for the next one. He coached, cheered, inspired and donated man's most precious resource... TIME.. to the young people of Washington County," said Bruce Bridgham, who in the early 70's was a middle school student who ran in many of Lincoln's fun runs.

Bridgham was among a number of young locals who developed an interest in the sport as a result of Lincoln's efforts and who like many others matured into outstanding competitors. Bridgham went on to win the two most prestigious 5-mile road races in the state in Bangor and Portland, and in 2002 at the age of 42 he placed 23rd in the Mt. Washington Road Race. Others who emerged from the ranks of his fun runners included Roger Young of Eastport who became a front-runner in AAU races in the Portland area and won many races in schoolboy competition, and who went on to become a notable race walker. And there was Sheril Sprague who in high school won the State Class C Cross Country Championship and later became a record-setting steeplechase competitor at UMaine. A Calais boy, Bill Pike, won Lincoln's 2-mile fun run in 1973, and later won the 7-mile Eastport race in 1977, setting a course record that remains intact to this day. Pike later ran for the University of Maine where he was cross-country and outdoor track captain. At UMO, he ran a 9:01 two mile and also later recorded a 2:26 marathon. Pike also holds the fastest solo time in Lincoln's 29-mile event.

But Lincoln's contributions included much more than putting on fun runs and annual road races. He revived the high school cross-country programs at Calais, Woodland, and Eastport, and developed all-new cross-country programs at the grade schools. He coached elementary cross-country teams for 18 years and did the ground work for establishing grade school competitions that continue to be very popular with youngsters to this day. But in the early 1970's, all this was new to the people of the area, and he often encountered some skeptics. Time and again his ears would ring with the words, "Are you crazy?" Even when he was a youngster his parents would sometimes question his "intelligence" as the time he put a can of worms in the refrigerator but didn't put the lid on tight! One year while teaching at Woodland High he approached Principal Ronald Moody about having a 3-mile run open to everyone at the school. Lincoln remembers Moody's response.

"Frankly, I think you are crazy!" But Moody "was a super good principal and athlete," said Lincoln, "who supported the teachers and if something was good for kids he wouldn't stand in the way of having it happen." Moody did finally go along with Lincoln's idea, but gave Lincoln full responsibility for the outcome. The run not only went over well, with 317 finishers, but it became an annual event the kids called The Woodland Marathon, later renamed the Dr. Greenough Memorial Race in honor of a respected local physician who was killed in an accident. A few years later Moody took a job downstate as a headmaster and not long afterward a new 15K road race appeared on the race schedule, to be held at Monmouth Academy. Guess who was the race's founder?
It was clear that Lincoln could even convert the hardheaded.

In the 1970's, when Shead runners were beginning to be noticed throughout the state "it was thrilling to see Sheril Sprague win the individual cross-country championship in 1977, see Roger Young, Sheril Sprague, and Bill Hoover finish in the top ten at the class C state meet in 1978," said Lincoln. Soon after their good performances, and after he encouraged several DAC members, the Downeast Athletic Conference recognized cross-country as a major sport along with baseball, basketball, and soccer. "It was so thrilling to see my son, Dale II, win the DAC Championship in 1987, and have my daughter, Diana, and son be on the Eastern Maine Championship Cross-Country teams when I was coaching both teams."

His 1987 Shead High girls cross-country squad was Eastern Maine Champions and took third in the state meet, and his 1986 boys team at Shead placed second in the state meet, losing by only three points. His 1993 girls team from Calais were Downeast Athletic Conference Champs. Lincoln was named Conference Coach of the Year in 1986 and 1987.

Perhaps no other event had Lincoln's trademark on it more than one he thought up while on an April training run as he prepared for the 1971 Boston Marathon. On April 3rd, his family was invited to supper at his wife's parents home in Eastport. They left their home in Woodland and sometime near one 0' clock Elsie and the children let Dale out at the Customs House in Calais. He remembers saying to them, "see ya in Eastport." He arrived in Eastport 29 miles later. As he approached the town he was forced off the road by a car coming out of Eastport and onto the soft sand shoulder where he came to a walk for a short distance. A friend, Alexander Brown, was passing by in his car and asked what he was doing. Brown then gave him a motor escort into town. Lincoln remembers telling 'Brownie,' "This should be an annual event." And so it was in 1972.

The event, which he called Super Joggers Day, was meant to be a challenge to anyone, regardless of their ability, as the purpose was to see just how far you could run. It was always held on the first Saturday of April. Lincoln personally designed laminated certificates which were presented to anyone who surpassed five miles, and of course, many did. Even in that first year a 17-year-old girl from Perry, Paula Frost, ran the entire distance and completed the course four times in allover the race's II-year history. Frost thus became a pioneer of women's long distance running in Eastern Maine. In 1973, 13-year-old Roger Young ran the full distance. Lincoln ran the full distance seven times, more than any other runner, and recorded his personal best in 1977 when he was 40, clocking 3:50.00. Runners could complete the course alone or as a member of a 2-man, 3-man, or 4-man team. And everyone kept their own time which became the official time. Friends or family members of the runners drove along and gave water and encouragement over the beautiful but challenging course.

"And the thing about it was its informality, and maybe it discouraged people, but it wasn't meant to," said Lincoln. "But you come there, you complete the course, and everybody does their own thing. Every runner and team kept their own time."

Interestingly enough, it was the informality of the event that runners loved and the reason they returned year after year. "As the years went by the race was building a reputation for rotten weather, for rain, snow and raw, wet cold," said veteran distance runner from Machias, Deke Talbot. "I built up a vision of the first 17 miles of hills, followed by 12 miles of an unrelenting headwind. Dale Lincoln relished talking about it. He loved it!"

Remember, as a child, Lincoln practically lived outdoors, and throughout his life he had become accustomed to dealing with the challenges that Mother Nature handed out as he raked blueberries with the boiling sun on his back and dug clams in freezing, raw cold. And now his own invention, Super Joggers Day, allowed him and others to test themselves not only against the long and rugged course but against the unpredictable weather.

"I think the course was tougher than a marathon," said Lincoln, "because in a formal marathon you are always running with somebody. In this event, however, there may be only 25 people at the start and you are on your own a lot. You have to set your own pace." He remembers one year after finishing, Brian Manza came up to him and said "we should have a 50-miler one of these days." "Are you crazy," said Lincoln. "Brian's idea was a good one but my reply reflected on how I was feeling at that moment."

Lincoln had a good deal of common sense. He had by now considerable running experience and he had learned firsthand the true definition of "inferno" to be "Holyoke" (the Holyoke Marathon), and this is why he chose not to have the Super Joggers Day any where near the summer. That would clearly have been a health risk to the participants.

Super Joggers Day continued through 1982.

"Dale knew," said Talbot, "that because of the relative poverty and isolation of the area, he would be unable to maintain distance running as a high intensity, high profile sport and by the application of his own hard labor and solid common sense, he kept the races small, informal and intimate and by doing so, ensured their continued existence. Dale liked the idea of a small, low-key race with stability, staying power, and manageability. Other races might burst onto the scene, supernova-like, and quickly fade away. Dale would feed his race sparingly, keep it small and lean like a stunted, age-old pine. . . if running is a tree, Dale is patiently caring for its roots." "Dale was one of the very first Washington County residents to run in the Boston Marathon which was a great honor in the eyes of all us boys from Downeast," said Brian Altivater Sr. of Pleasant Point. "Dale's name is synonymous with running among Washington County runners. I remember being in grammar school when Red Sapiel would take a bunch of us kids to a weekly road race in Woodland. He would encourage us to beat the old man, Dale Lincoln. Many of us eventually beat Dale but at the same time we were young bucks and Dale, well, he was past his running days."

Rick Krause, who ran in all of Lincoln's annual races at least once during the 1970's and later nominated him to the Maine Running Hall of Fame called Lincoln "one of those special people you never forget, even if you only met him once. He is so sincere, genuine, and honest. As the years passed by I came to realize what a privilege it was to be a part in his small, informal races, as road racing elsewhere changed to huge fields, a lot of big hype over elite entrants (another payday), where runners shelled out mind-boggling entry fees that benefited nothing related to running. I remember so well the goose bumps I felt in the Fourth of July race in 1973, as I approached the town of Eastport with a fire truck ahead of me with its siren screaming, it was like winning the Boston Marathon." Dale's races were my "Boston Marathons."

"Dale had such a tremendously positive influence on so many, many people, whose confidence and success from their running carried over into all of their life's endeavors," said Krause. "No other experience in my 37 years in the sport can come close to the joy of running in Dale's Washington County races nor the pleasure of my 30 years of friendship with this very special man."

Bill Pike once wrote to Lincoln, ... "if not for Ralph Thomas and your harebrained idea to have 8th graders run cross-country I may never have been much of a runner because if I had started at a later time in my life I probably would not have won my first race and I may not have got the running bug."

Lincoln suffered torn cartilage in his left knee in 1993, the same year he retired from teaching. After total hip replacement in 1994, it was easy to follow Dr. Philip Kimball's recommendation, "do not run!" The knee surgery a few months earlier had affected his co-ordination for running. After four years of biking, walking and attempting to run, he noticed that his leg strength and co-ordination made remarkable improvements.

Late in the summer of 1998, the athletic director at Calais High asked him to consider applying for the job of cross-country coach. Lincoln happily obliged.

Lincoln's last competition was the 1999 Salmon Run at Eastport, although he may not be through yet, as there is a rumor that he is training for some 5K competitions in 2002 and 2003.

Then in 1999 he would fulfill one of his greatest dreams. As a youngster, Lincoln had always loved books. He produced a 433-page book about his life and the history of the area, and within its chapters which include many historical photos, are at least two chapters of his experiences in running and coaching. He called the book "Clyde Found Fruitflies in the Berries."

Lincoln credits a number of individuals for helping him during his years of promoting running. They include Francis "Red" Sapiel, (Pleasant Point);
Brian Manza (Woodland); Rick Krause (Edgecomb); Alexander Brown, Charles Davis, Dick Young, Dennis Cline (all of Eastport); children: Carol, Diana, Dale II, and his wife, Elsie "'who put up with it all for the past forty years." "His family is very proud of him,' said Elsie Lincoln, "and we thank all who had a part in giving him this honor." (Hall of Fame)

"All of the race directing and coaching I was ever connected with was just in the process of living and enjoying life," said Lincoln.

Deke Talbot put his cherished friend in perspective when he said, "I think the gospel passage says it best: 'By their fruits, shall ye know them.'