Who was the first high school girl in Virginia to run a sub 5 minute mile?

Answer 1

The answer to the Fun Trivia question,

"Who was the first high school girl in the state of Virginia to run a sub-5-minute mile?" is Sarah Bowman. By all accounts, Ms. Bowman is an exceptional athlete and, according to http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=4573, she did run a sub-5-minute outdoor mile (4:57.05) as a senior in high school. Also, according to her University of Tennessee Track and Field biography, http://www.utladyvols.com/sports/w-track/mtt/bowman_sarah00.html, she ran a 4:36.95 outdoor mile in 2005. That site also cites the 2005 4:36.95 outdoor mile as "the fastest ever run by a female at a high school-only competition". The University of Tennessee track and field biography for Ms. Bowman goes on to state that she also ran a sub-5-minute indoor mile (4:46.79) while in high school.

However, since the question reads, "Who was the first high school girl in the state of Virginia to run a sub-5-minute mile?", one can interpret the question to mean "Who was the first high school girl to run a sub-5-minute mile in Virginia?" or "Who was the first girl from a Virginia high school to run a sub-5-minute mile?"

According to Sports Illustrated, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1085941/index.htm, 16-year-old Debbie Heald of La Mirada, Calif., set a world in an indoor-world-record of 4:38.5 in Richmond, Virginia on March 17, 1972. As such, Sarah Bowman may have been the first girl from a Virginia high school to run a sub-5-minute mile but she wasn't the first high school girl to run a sub-five-minute mile in Virginia.