Paul Firlotte was born March 27, 1933, in Ellsworth, the son of Joseph and Laura Firlotte. After graduating from the one-room Otis Grammar School in 1947, he entered Ellsworth High School in September 1948 “with no particular aspirations,” but running was soon to change his future dramatically.

Having broken his right leg in three places the previous spring, Paul did not participate in sports his freshman year. At the urging of an older acquaintance who was a runner, Paul tried out for the cross-country team his sophomore year. Although he had never seen a foot race, on Oct. 3, 1949, he raced against Orono High School, surprising himself, Coach Leo Langille, and others in winning by 200 yards! In fact, the margin was so large that Langille sternly asked Firlotte “Did you take a short cut?” To which Paul replied, “No, Coach, the others just weren’t running very fast!”

Foreshadowing an extraordinary future in running cross-country, he was destined never to be defeated in a State of Maine cross-country meet throughout high school. A week later he tied the State Prep School record of 13 minutes 55 seconds on the University of Maine cross-country course, comfortably defeating the UMaine freshman team. After that meet, University of Maine coach Chester Jenkins took note and made sure Langille got better footwear to replace the heavy leather boxing shoes Firlotte was wearing in competition.

Paul remembers Langille as a superb motivator who “would not allow me to enter a race until I had convinced myself that I would win.” On Oct. 21, he won the six-school regional championship on the same course, setting a new high school record of 13:42. On Nov. 3, Paul won the State High School Championship, again lowering the course record to 13:34.4, a championship that included all Maine schools, since at the time there were no divisions by school size. A week later, capping a sensational sophomore season, Paul finished second in the six-state New England High School Championship in Middletown, Conn., to John Kelley, a senior from New London, Conn., who won the 1953 National Collegiate Championship his senior year. Kelley, later a winner of the Boston Marathon, was nicknamed Johnny Kelley “the Younger” to distinguish him from Johnny Kelley “the Elder,” legendary runner and two-time Boston champion.

Paul continued his dominance in his junior year. In 1950, before a meet between Ellsworth High School and the University of Maine freshmen, Coach Jenkins was quoted in the Bangor Daily News as saying, “I’m looking for a really great individual race here tomorrow. I have a couple of good boys running for me, and Firlotte of Ellsworth is a classy runner.”

Paul chopped almost 45 seconds off his record the next day with 12:49.6, beating the first UMaine runner by 30 seconds. He easily won the Maine high school cross-country championships in 1950 and 1951. Although the flu stole his opportunity to win the 1950 New England championship race, Paul finished his stellar high school career with a victory in 1951 over the defending champion, William King of Boston English.

In dominating his competition, Paul Firlotte is thought to be the only Maine high school cross-country runner to go undefeated against Maine competition. During this time Bangor Daily News sportswriters nicknamed Paul “The Ellsworth Express.” Paul remembers that he “never finished a race and laid down, just finished strong and jogged a few minutes to cool down.”

Paul’s success at the University of Maine in Orono was just as remarkable. In an era when freshmen weren’t allowed to compete, Paul won the Yankee Conference championships all three of his varsity years, 1953, ’54 and ’55. The Yankee Conference consisted of all six New England states’ land-grant universities. Punctuating a superlative career, he ended with a flourish, winning the New England collegiate championship his senior year at Franklin Field in Boston and leading his University of Maine quintet to the team championship with a score of 42, besting second place Providence College’s 68 points. Although he had success in both indoor and outdoor track at Ellsworth and Orono, his true passion was cross-country running. Paul recalls his high school and collegiate running years as “the best years of my life. I looked forward to every practice and every meet.”

In limited post-collegiate competition, given the few regular road races of the era, Paul finished second at the Portland Boys’ Club 5-miler in 1954, winning the event in 1955 with a 25:01 and winning it again in 1956. In 1955 he was awarded the 1955 Maine Athlete of the Year by the Bangor Daily News, and in 1992 Paul was inducted into the University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

He married his wife Pat in 1955, and after college they moved to Millinocket, where Paul began his career as an electrical engineer at Great Northern Paper Co., retiring after 35 years as Power Systems Manager. Pat and Paul have a son, Douglas, a daughter, Lynn O’Kane, and son-in-law, Galen O’Kane. Douglas and Galen graduated from the University of Maine as electrical engineers, Lynn as a mechanical engineer. Paul has been very active in outdoor activities, hunting and fishing the backwoods of Maine all his life. He served on the Baxter State Park Authority advisory committee for fifteen years and the Allagash Wilderness Riverway advisory committee for several years.

The Firlottes have returned to Paul’s childhood farm in Ellsworth, owned by his family since 1834. Paul is active in genealogical research and serves as chairman of the Ellsworth High School Alumni Association’s investment committee. The best part of Paul’s retirement is spending time with his two grandsons, James and Joseph O’Kane, passing on to them his knowledge of the outdoors.