Shirley Jackson Marathon Announces Lottery ‘Winners’
/
background image via depositphotos.com
Organizers of the Shirley Jackson Memorial Marathon today announced the “winners” of its annual lottery, sending a chill throughout the local running community and prompting desperate phone calls and emails to the event’s race director.
The race, held each August in the small town of North Bennington, Vermont, attracts a field of about 1,200 runners. This year marks its 30th anniversary.
The lottery was overseen by Joe Summers, the marathon’s longtime race director, who pulled slips of folded paper from a black wooden box while hundreds of runners looked on. The drawing was also livestreamed online.
Reaction among the crowd was split—those not selected described feeling “happy” and “relieved,” while the dozen or so whose names were drawn exhibited denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.
Almost immediately after the drawing, Summers said, he was inundated with voicemails, texts, and emails from “winners,” protesting their status or pleading with him to reconsider. At least one caller, he said, put her young daughter on the phone to appeal to him directly.
Summers, who noted that “rules are rules, and results are final,” said the marathon has held its lottery for as long as he can remember, though he can’t recall its origins.
“To be honest, I can’t remember why we started doing it,” Summers said in an interview. “But now, it’s tradition.”
Reached by phone for comment, one of the “winners,” Tessie Hutchinson, 44, expressed denial and anger.
“It isn’t fair,” Hutchinson said. “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.”
Shortly afterward, the line went dead.
The 30th annual Shirley Jackson Memorial Marathon is scheduled for August 6, 2023.
