by CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
KELLY’S CORNER — An Olympian was overwhelmed by how her former school community honoured her with a special ceremony Wednesday morning.
Melissa Bishop is golden to the people who support her. The 24-year-old who grew up in Lake Dore, graduated from Eganville District Public School and Opeongo High School, was brought to tears during the event at the high school.
As one person put it during the ceremony, “There are seven billion people in the world and we have in our cafeteria a person who finished second in the world.”
Ms. Bishop, the daughter of Doug and Alison and granddaughter of Tory Hawkins of Cobden, was the guest of honour during the two hour event.
A Pan Am gold medallist, a world champion and an Olympian, Ms. Bishop entered the cafeteria to the cheering of hundreds of students. This was after she was escorted through the front hallway to the cafeteria by Wildcat and students along the way cheering her on as well.
She was escorted to her front-row seat between her mom and dad with other close family members and friends sitting nearby.
Throughout the next two hours, she would be talked about and would also talk about her accomplishments.
When the talking was over, she was escorted, again by Wildcat, to the front lobby of Opeongo High School. Standing with several people, a red curtain was pulled apart and a display case honouring Ms. Bishop’s running career was unveiled.
With eyes wide open, Ms. Bishop said, “That is so great,” as she looked at a large photo of herself and many items to remind her, and others who enter the school, about her running career.
“This is way beyond what I thought was going to happen,” she said after shock wore off and she had time to examine the display case. “This was not something I expected. I’m so honoured to be honoured at an event like this.
“I don’t know the right words to say. It makes you feel special that you had such an impact on people. I’m speechless. It’s incredible.
“The amount of work that went into that and highlighting every point of my career on the track. It’s incredible. It’s gorgeous.”
Grandmother Tory Hawkins said she is overwhelmed with all of the love people have for her granddaughter.
“They’ve always stood behind her 100 per cent,” she said of Ms. Bishop’s supporters. “So, I’m not surprised, but I am thankful.”
Ms. Hawkins said it’s sometimes difficult to fathom everything her granddaughter has accomplished.
“Melissa always had a lot of drive to do things,” she said. “I remember one time someone saying she is so coachable. She listens to what she’s being told by more experienced people.”
A humble family, Ms. Hawkins said, “It’s a strange feeling to share her with the world. I see her on the track and think, is that our Melissa?”
THE EVENT
Once Ms. Bishop was seated, the Jazzcats lead the crowd in singing O’Canada.
Teacher Sara Edmison was emcee for the event.
“Our school, Opeongo, is great in many ways,” she said. “Our academics, our athletes, our dramatic productions and our award-winning Jazzcats. Today, we are here to celebrate greatness, the greatness of one of our former students, Melissa Bishop.”
She also introduced the elementary schools that were represented: Cobden District Public School, Eganville District Public School, St. James Catholic School and St. Michael’s Catholic School.
Principal Tom Havey provided the introduction of the Renfrew County District School Board members who were present.
“It’s so wonderful to see all of you here this morning,” he said. “It’s exciting to have this room so fully packed. There has been incredible energy in the school here for several weeks preparing for this big day.”
Dave Shields, chair of the school board, said being the opening act for Ms. Bishop is an honour.
“We are all so proud of Melissa and all of her accomplishments,” he said.
Mr. Shields noted there are many graduates of OHS who have gone onto greater things once graduated. He named several who are working for the board, including Gayle Bishop and Brent McIntyre, who are superintendents; principals Terry Burwell and Dave Bishop and vice-principal Sarah McFee.
“We can be proud of all of our contributors,” he said. “This is a wonderful school and all these people are now with our board.
“Imagine how many others from this school have leadership roles in other places,” he added.
Before stepping down, Mr. Shields said there is online voting for Canadian Athlete of the Year. He encouraged everyone to go online and vote for Ms. Bishop, who is in first place for the honour.
MELISSA’S CAREER
Coach and athletics department head Janet Reiche-Schoenfeldt highlighted Ms. Bishop’s career.
“We are here today to celebrate an outstanding individual,” she said. “A person who was raised in the valley, and one who calls this area her home.”
She said Ms. Bishop began running track at 12 years of age when she played soccer at Eganville District Public School, which she thought might be her sport.
When she was attending OHS, she played on several teams, including volleyball, hockey and cross country.
“Melissa holds the Opeongo record in the 100, 200, 400 and 800 metre events,” Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said
During the cross country season of 2002 she won a silver and team silver at the OFSAA championship. She was coached by Opeongo’s long time cross country coach Sheila Kennedy.
While at high school Ms. Bishop won a gold medal in the 400m at OFSAA in 2003, and then the next year she won a silver in the 400m and gold in the 800m.
“Winning two medals at one OFSAA championship is quite a feat,” she said.
In 2007 she was first in the 800m at the Canadian Track and Field championships.
Along with running track at the high school, Ms. Bishop also trained with the Ottawa Lions, where she still holds records in the 600, 800 and 1000 meter events.
The round trip back and forth from Eganville to Ottawa was a 270-kilometre trek and this was extremely hard on Ms. Bishop and her parents. To avoid that commute, Ms. Bishop spent a semester at Glebe Collegiate in Ottawa before returning to Opeongo to walk across the graduation stage with her friends, Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said.
Then, it was off to the University of Ottawa for a year before deciding to study in the Human Kinetics department at the University of Windsor. She earned a Bachelor of Human Kinetics and an Education degree.
While representing the U of W, Ms. Bishop won multiple gold medals in the 600 and 1000m at the CIS Championships and she still holds Lancers recorders in the 600 and 1000m events.
“Many of you know Ms. Bishop personally and have walked in the same halls at EDPS or here at Opeongo,” Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said. “She has been and still is a student just like all of you. She is constantly learning and striving to be the best she can.”
Ms. Bishop made her big world debut at the 2012 London Olympics, she recalled. That same year she broke the two-minute mark in the 800m at the Prefontaine Classic.
“Some of us sat in the Eganville Arena to watch her race at the 2012 Olympics, while others watched at home,” Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said. “She was now our Olympian. She then went on to win back-to-back national titles in 2013 and 2014.
“Our Olympian Melissa Bishop has had a summer to remember in 2015,” she said. “This year at the Pan Am Games in Toronto she won gold in the women’s 800m event.”
When CBC journalist Paul Hunter interviewed Ms. Bishop at the Pam Am track, he said she had been waiting a long time for this kind of euphoric moment on the track.
“She told Paul, ‘It’s something I’ve worked so hard to do for all of these 12 years I’ve been putting in and to finally do it and at home, it’s one of a kind moment.
“Singing O’Canada and seeing our flag raised is something you dream of.
“Gold at home! How much sweeter does it get?”
Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said, “There are seven billion people in the world and we have in our cafeteria a person who finished second in the world. What an accomplishment!”
At the 2015 World Track and Field Championships, Ms. Bishop set a Canadian record in her semi-final heat, shattering a 14-year-old record, and then on August 28, she finished second in the women’s 800 metre to capture silver at Beijing.
“Melissa is only the third Canadian woman to run the 800 metres in under two minutes and she is currently the Canadian record holder in this event,” she added.
There is a saying which says nothing works unless you do, and Ms. Bishop has worked hard to get to where she currently is, she said. There have been many sacrifices along the way. In an interview with a former Opeongo student, Terry Fleurie, a current reporter with the Eganville Leader, Ms Bishop said, “It’s important to have faith, believe in what you’re doing and find that drive and determination to be the best in whatever it is that’s important to you.”
Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said, “Melissa did not become the best overnight. She has been in this sport for 12 years. And through her hard work, dedication and perseverance she is now seeing the results, and so are we.
“She said in another interview that it takes a lot of years to build. It’s like a big triangle. You start at the bottom and build a base and go from there.”
She added, “I would hope the bottom of the base of Ms. Bishop’s triangle would include the EDPS, OHS, Ottawa Lions, the Legion, and The Windsor Lancers track and field teams.”
Talking to the students, she said maybe some of you have a dream of becoming the next Melissa Bishop or of being an NHL hockey player, of which two former Opeongo students have become, or nurse or astronaut or teacher or Nobel Prize winner or rock star or maybe of winning an Oscar or even owning your own business.
“As Melissa has said, have faith, believe, have drive and determination to be the best in whatever it is that’s important to you.”
One of Ms. Bishop’s favourite quotes is ‘Hard work makes the journey worth it.’ This year’s Opeongo link crew has adopted this as their quote, Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said.
It has been quite a comeback for the runner who missed the indoor season with a torn abdominal muscle and then suffered an ankle injury in May that had her sidelined for almost a month.
“She may have thought that this track season was not going to happen, but thank goodness she persevered and did not give up,” Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt said. “Her journey has had many twists and turns, just like the track she runs on. And, as you can see all of her hard work has paid off and has been worth it.
“But, Melissa is not done yet.”
She is already on the road to the 2016 Olympics in Rio, she said.
“Our school community is so honoured to have her represent us there and she will know we will be cheering loud and hard for her back home when she is racing in Brazil this August,” she said.
THE VIDEO
Taking to the stage, Ms. Edmison said Ms. Bishop has had a photographic career from the time she first started in sports at elementary school, then high school and eventually with the Windsor Lancers and onto the world stage at the London Olympics.
For the next few minutes, the crowd was quiet as they watched a video of photographs of Ms. Bishop. The video ended with Ms. Bishop winning the gold in front of a home crowd at the Pam Am Games in Toronto this past summer.
Ms. Edmison recalled the first time she met Ms. Bishop at OHS. It was in Room 216.
“I have enjoyed every minute watching her career, even getting up at four and five a.m. to catch some of those early races,” she recalled. “I have always been in awe of her perseverance and focus and also of her gracious, caring nature.”
Ms. Bishop may be an Olympian, a gold medallist and is currently the leader in the voting for Canadian athlete of the year, but, “we still like to call her our own,” she said.
Ms. Bishop then walked onto the stage as thunderous applause filled the cafeteria.
Thanking the organizing committee for an invitation to come back to her school, she said it was “incredible” to watch the video.
Laughing, she noted Ms. Reiche-Schoenfeldt spoke about her running career, which she was going to.
“I’ll fill in some little details,” she said.
She recalled being in Grade 4 and getting her first taste of cross country running.
“I fell in love with it immediately,” she said.
But, it wasn’t her only sport. Throughout her high school years she was always busy, and she encouraged the students to stay busy and stay involved.
“You will meet a lot of people and you will try new things and you will experience new things,” she said.
Ms. Bishop recalled when she moved to Ottawa while in Grade 12.
“I left behind a really strong family, my Opeongo family, my best friends, my soccer team, my hockey team, my basketball team, my volleyball team,” she said. “I got up and left.
“It wasn’t to insult them, but there was something I really, really wanted to go after. This was a dream I needed to chase in order for me to get there, and my next move was to Ottawa, because it was less of a commute.”
But, it wasn’t all roses in Ottawa. Shortly after arriving in the city, she suffered a stress fracture to her foot and was sidelined, which meant she missed her final year competing at OFSAA.
“I fell out of love with the sport, but I kept going because it was a constant in my life,” Ms. Bishop said. “It was all I knew. Going to practice was just so routine for me.”
Not liking the track team at the University of Ottawa, she did some research and found a program at the University of Windsor she really liked and there was a great track team. Dennis Fairall was the coach back then, and he’s still her coach today.
“I had a lot of success in Windsor,” she recalled. “Dennis coached me from day one. He took me under his wing. I committed to every single aspect of his training and it has got me this far,” Ms. Bishop said.
In 2012 a dream became reality when she made it onto the Canadian Olympic team. But, it was through hard work. In 2011, she did a racing circuit in Europe and when she returned home was supposed to start her Masters in Kinetics. But, it was time to chase her dream.
She knew that to make it onto the Olympic team, she needed to be running the 800m in a time very close to 2 minutes. She sat down with her parents, coach, boyfriend and other support people and it was decided Ms. Bishop needed to take every opportunity to try and make this Olympic team.
“I had done everything in my career so far to put track first to try and make the Olympic team,” she recalled.
It was agreed she would focus on training. She became a full time athlete, not worrying about school or earning her Masters degree.
That was the right decision, because in 2012, she made the Olympic team.
“I made the Olympic team and now running is my full time job,” she said. “That is what I do for a living.”
Ms. Bishop was ecstatic and continued to train hard. She had great confidence in herself and knew things would work out. But, not as she expected.
“It was the complete opposite,” she said. “It was a heart break. It was very upsetting.
“I remember crying so much when I saw my parents after the race. I just assumed I would get to the next round. I had never prepared for the worst. It was almost naive of me to think I was good enough to make the first round and the next round. My performance was not a positive experience for me.
“After the 2012 Olympic games, my experience was so incredible, that I am now looking forward to 2016, the race itself.”
Training is going well and she is still running the 800m in the 1:59 time. It’s nothing out of the ordinary and for now she’s in the top 20 in the world.
Ms. Bishop said, “I’m really fit.
“I’m really fast.
“I’m really strong.”
But she recalled a year ago. She was home for Christmas and had a small nag in her abdomen. She went to Santiago for some training and when she returned home in January, she could hardly walk. She had an MRI and a sports hernia was discovered — this is a small tear in her abdomen that would require surgery.
With her mom at her side, Ms. Bishop recalls the surgeon telling them if he cut into her, she would be prone to injury and there was no guarantee she would ever be back in shape to make it onto a running team. He told her the best option was rehab for as long as she needed to…and what’s what she did.
The day before the Pan Am team was named, Ms. Bishop ran and was second in Canada.
“I knew from that point things were going to be okay,” she said.
And they were .. she won gold at the Pan Am and earned a silver at the world’s event.
The silver medal race was one of the best moments of her career.
“Not just the silver medal, but also the Canadian record,” Ms. Bishop said. “It was something I’ve been working so hard for, for a really long time.
“I’m Number Two in the world. It just rolls off my tongue, but I don’t really think what kind of meaning it has,” she said. “It’s something that I’ve made a lot of sacrifices for to get myself here. And I’m so thankful for everybody who has been on that ride.”
Ms. Bishop said things don’t come easy in whatever a person chooses to do.
“This is no Cinderella story,” she said. “I’ve been doing it for 14 years and I still have ups and downs, I am still learning the sport, sill learning how to run 800 metres just like you guys are trying to figure out what you are going to do in life.”
People need to persevere, even if they get stuck in a rut. She recalled when she was injured and wanted to give in, but her support team wouldn’t let her. They forced her to keep trying, knowing things would always get better.
“You never know what those days of hard work will end up being,” Ms. Bishop said. “Maybe it’s a silver medal, maybe it’s a gold medal, maybe it’s an Olympic team, maybe graduate university, maybe you become a musician, maybe a doctor. Those are all things that you guys need to strive and put in the hard work to get there.”
Ms. Bishop said her goals have always been to make the Olympic team. But, there are two kinds of goals.. the long term and the short term. Her long term goal was to make the Olympic team, which she did. However, in between, there were many short term goals, because those goals can constantly change, she said.
She stressed that while going after the goals people should have fun, but they must also remember, that it won’t always be fun.
“I miss out on so many family get togethers, miss out on parties, miss out on dances, miss out on spending time with friends,” she said.
When in high school, she had to decide if she wanted to go to a dance and have a poor performance the next day or forgo the dance and meet up with her friends after a good race the next day.
Getting choked up, Ms. Bishop encouraged her mom, dad and grandmother to stand up before the crowd. She then asked her coaches to stand up.
“This is my main support team.”
She then encouraged every teacher, administrative staff and school board member to stand.
“This is my support team,” she said. “This is your support team. The teachers are here to inspire you and help you.
“Take advantage of what you have in front of you. These are the best people you will need on your way, from the best community and best group of schools you will ever come in contact with.”
Ms. Bishop said she may have attained her goal of getting onto the Olympic team, but she’s not done yet.
“I’m just getting started,” she said.
Ms. Bishop was then asked to answer a question from eight different students, including what are sponsors and how do you get them; what is she going to do after she retires; how does she pick herself up after losing a race; and her thoughts as she crossed the finish line at the Pan Am Games, knowing she won gold.
She was then presented with a large banner with the signatures of many students and staff. Ms. Edmison noted that Ms. Bishop will have to read all the writing, because one student challenged her to a race, bringing laughter from the crowd.
THE FINAL SPEAKER
Gayle Bishop, a school superintendent as well as Ms. Bishop’s aunt, was the final guest speaker.
“I’m so very pleased be here to celebrate Melissa’s accomplishments,” she said.
This area is really the heart of Renfrew County, and not just because of its situation, but because of the people, she said.
“When members of our community are dealing with misfortunes, fires, accidents, illness or loss, the community is there for support,” she said.
Hundreds have gathered to celebrate the accomplishments of a community member, Gayle Bishop said.
“We know as a community we consider Melissa to be ours and we take interest in her career and cheering her on. Usually we cheer her on from our living rooms.”
However, Gayle Bishop noted she was able to cheer Ms. Bishop from the sidelines at the Pan Am Games. As Melissa was warming up, a couple sitting near Gayle Bishop said, “Hey, that’s our Canadian athlete.”
Gayle Bishop said she couldn’t help but tell them Ms. Bishop was also her niece. She then spent the next few minutes answering questions about Ms. Bishop.
But, when the race started, the questions stopped and the screaming and cheering began.
“During that moment when Melissa crossed the finish line, I looked over, and the man I had been chatting with had big tears of happiness flowing down his face.
“And I thought, what an amazing feeling. Melissa’s community is now all of Canada. She was our Canadian and she was being supported by the Canadians at the event. And many of them were in their living rooms cheering her on as well.”
Ms. Bishop represents Canada at world events and has support from one end of the country to the other end. People don’t know her, but she is a Canadian athlete and they are cheering her on, Gayle Bishop said.
But, it’s not only her running ability they are cheering on, she said.
“You don’t have this kind of support unless you have character. There are traits of people that demonstrate character, such as responsibility, perseverance, initiative, respect and optimism.
“Melissa demonstrates these traits every day,” Gayle Bishop said. “She just would not be where she is in her running career unless she took initiative, persevered and was responsible for her own training. When Melissa trains three times a day, she doesn’t have time to sit around and decide whether or not she should exercise, she just does it.
“Melissa has made many choices and I know many of us would call those choices sacrifices. But she has set her goals and she knows what she has to do to achieve them,” Gayle Bishop said.
Ms. Bishop is a very caring and humble person, her aunt said. She shares her successes with her coach and gives credit to her parents, grandmother, boyfriend and all of her support team.”
Ms. Bishop has given of her time to visit schools throughout the area, Gayle Bishop said. She knows of one young girl who has a picture of Ms. Bishop on her fridge — and it’s been there for three years. She always answered the young students questions with grace and made the connection with the students.
“Melissa, it’s wonderful that you have given of your time and made the connections with the students.
“It takes a lot of courage for you to state your dreams publicly. You told us you wanted to be an Olympian and you are an Olympian. You stuck to your dreams and you are an inspiration.
“On behalf of this great community, we wish you all the very best as you pursue your future dreams.”
Ms. Bishop was then escorted to the showcase in the front lobby.
Following the unveiling, there was a photo taken of Ms. Bishop cutting a cake in the gymnasium where the students had gathered. There were several cakes throughout the gymnasium congratulating Ms. Bishop, which guaranteed that almost everyone who wanted a piece of cake, would get one.
There was also opportunity for students to get a signed autograph from Ms. Bishop, whether it be on a photo supplied by Ms. Bishop or on something the students brought.
Jamie Schultz, one of the three main students who worked on the display, said the students were given ideas for the display and they “just ran with them. This was a nice thing to do for her.”
