Maddy Scott was smiling. Nevermind the 42 degrees, the unforgiving wind, the early hour, all the things that could go wrong at her first event; Maddy was smiling. Not an affected grin, but a genuine look of happiness. There was nowhere else she would have wanted to be.

The same, surprisingly, seemed to be true for the 72 runners who, despite the mid-October chill, gathered at Galbraith Field on Sunday, October 21, for the First Annual “Pints + Pancakes 5K.” It was a festive atmosphere enhanced with music, hot apple cider, hot chocolate, coffee, lots of anxious runners, and, of course, griddles full of pancakes.

True to the name, there were pints of ice cream, too, though in the time I spent middling among the crowd I didn’t see any runner brave – or foolish – enough to eat any before tackling the 3.1-mile cross country course.

Scott, who graduated in 2016 and is currently a senior communications major at Westfield State University, is Williston’s Assistant Director of Alumni Engagement and Giving, a position she holds part-time until college graduation, when the job becomes full time. This was her first event, planned from scratch, and she’s pleased with how it all went.

“I think it went pretty well,” she said. “It was exciting.” Scott ran Cross Country at Williston and served as Co-Captain her senior year, along with Rachel Rockwell ’16 and Natalie Aquadro, 17. She also swam and was on the track team. But running the course in a meet is much different than planning a race for others to run. She credited Athletic Trainer Melissa Brousseau and Girls Cross Country coach Martha McCullagh for their invaluable help in making it all go off without a hitch.

“They were extremely helpful,” Scott said. “When you’re running you don’t always get the other side of things.”

True to her passion, Scott is already eager for next year’s run; she hopes to market it to more of the community, to get the word out through social media as well as in regular emails, and to incorporate a charity aspect.

Talking to Scott, one gets the sense that not just this particular event, but this job, has been a long time in the making – that it’s a perfect symmetry of passion and personality.

“Williston is such a special place,” Scott said, smiling, “and a lot of alumni feel that way. I want to continue to build that relationship.”