Here is the story and it will take a while. Lew Smith came to Parkway South about 26 years ago after being a GA at Southwest Missouri State. He took over a very new girls track program. His first track meeting drew only a few girls. He asked those girls for advice as to how he could bet more girls interested in track and field and what he needed to do to coach girls. Girls track was very new at the time. One of his athletes, Victoria Reaves, came to him several weeks later and offered this advice. She said, ""I know that coaches don't make much money, but carnations are fairly inexpensive flowers."" When he admitted that was true and asked why, she said, ""If you are as good of a coach as I think you are, we are going to break a lot of school records this year. Why don't you buy a carnation for every girls who breaks a school record and give it to her the next morning. She will carry the flower around to classes all day and people will ask what the flower is for. She can proudly admit that she broke a school record and get some notoriety and more people will be aware of our track team and our success."" Remember this was at a time when girls didn't carry tons of flowers and balloons about three days per week as it the current fashion.
Anyway, Parkway South became a very strong program and Vickie became a team leader. She was a long jumper and developed leukemia early in her senior year. When track season came around, she was being treated at St. Judes in Memphis. She would jump in a meet on Saturday and her family would drive her to Memphis for chemo. She would be too weak to practice the following week, but would put on a parka and take a chair down to the long jump pits to coach her teammates. By the 2nd week, she would jump with the varsity and being the trip to Memphis and the entire cycle again. She often talked to Lew about celebrating health and celebrating track and field. Vickie's goal was to jump in the state championship meet and to set the Parkway South school record. I remember very well being at the sectional meet at P. South and Vickie advanced to state on her last jump. I didn't realize the whole story at the time, but I now understand it as serendipity. If this were a Hollywood movie she would have been the state champion, but that was not even close to a possibility. However, on the last jump at state; the last jump of her high school career and the last jump wearing a Parkway South uniform, Vickie broke the school record. That record still stands. Several girls have jumped farther in practice and even went on to jump in college, but no Parkway South female athlete has jumped farther in a meet.
Vickie graduated and died the next fall. Coach Smith asked her parents if he could name the fledgling Parkway south Inv. for her. They agreed and for 25 years if has been called the Victoria Reaves Invitational. It is one of the hottest meets in the state!! About 6 or 7 years ago the top 7 teams at Vickie were in the top 8 at state. Not in the same order but all were at the top in Jeff. City on the last weekend in May.
Because of Vickie's attitude of celebrating track and field, Coach Smith expanded the meet and included a JV division. This was the first large invitational meet to include a JV division that I know of. He feels that the more girls who get to celebrate health and track and field, the more Vickie's legacy survives. Every girl who wins an event a the VLR (her initials) gets a gold medal and a CARNATION. I know women in their 30's who still have an old carnation pressed into a memory book. Today girls get an artificial carnation which lasts much better. This is the only meet that I know of where there are baskets of flowers at the finish line.
Parkway South no longer sponsors this meet, however, Coach Smith continues to host the meet in Vickie's honor. He now coaches at Marquette and is close friends with the coaches at Lafayette. Since the Parkway south girls no longer attend the meet, Marquette and Lafayette girls do much of the work of running off the meet. For many years, only the Parkway South girls and a few select coaches wore ribbons in Vickie's honor. Now the Marquette girls make ribbons for every athlete and pass out ribbons to every girl in the meet.
When Vickie was buried, I believe she had part of her warm ups buried with her. I know that her uniform was intentionally unmarked and placed back in the pile of south uniforms. For years, every girl on the South team could go to the line thinking that they may be wearing Vickie's uniform and wanted to carry her legacy with pride. Unfortunately, few kids at Parkway South know anything at all about a special young lady who walked their halls and wore their colors. Still many girls from other schools can tell you the story of Victoria Reaves and are looking forward to celebrating track and field on the first Saturday in May.
One final story about VLR and her leadership. All teams go through a period, about now, when they are so tired of going to practice everyday and they need to be pepped up. When Vickie lost her hair to chemo, she often wore a scarf to practice. One day, she pulled off her scarf and had a white ""8"" painted on her head. I didn't mention that Vickie was African American, because it didn't matter, but she made some comment about being the ""8"" ball. Everyone laughed and practice wasn't quite as hard as it would have been. She was not a common leader!! She would do anything to help her teammates get through the workouts intended to make them better, while she struggled to get through the chemo treatments intended to make her better.
This young lady and her coach have always been an inspiration to me and I try my best to be sure that her legacy lives in the hearts of my athletes. We consider it a great privilege to be part of Vickie's celebration of Track and Field!!"