Chenango Forks Track and Field
Hall of Fame

Graduated:  School Record in Shot Put, League Meet Record in Shot Put

Class Champion: Shot Put (1957) 
SUS Champion:  Shot Put (1957)
Divisional Team Champion: 1957

In 1954, recent Horseheads transfer, Ray Rounsville was ecstatic when it was announced that his new little two-river hometown of Chenango Forks would be getting a Track and Field Team in the Spring of 1955, joining the twelve-team Susquenango Conference.  Since the district did not yet have a home track, Ray drew his own circle behind the Chenango Forks High School on Route 79 and would practice throwing large rocks into the Tioughnioga River.  His determination and ingenuity paid off...

Coming off a stellar football season in which Ray averaged eight yards a carry as the Blue Devils' leading rusher, and a basketball season where he led the team in scoring, the 5’9, 230 pound powerhouse became Chenango Forks’s first ever All Conference Thrower, with a toss of 46 feet 8 inches, setting the SUS Conference Meet Record (which he held for the next decade).  That same season he went on to win the Class B Meet, becoming Forks’s first ever Track Class Champion in any event.  In the Divisional Meet, Ray won the Shot and finished second in Disc to help lead Forks to our first ever Divisional Championship in Track and Field.  To close out his season and career, Ray was the first Chenango Forks Track athlete to place on the podium at Sectionals, with a throw of 47 feet 3¾ inches. 

That throw at Sectionals remained in our Top Five All Time throws for the next 48 years, and is still in the Top Ten puts in our history.  In fact, Ray is still the only Shot Putter in school history to be both a Class and Conference Champion… and amazingly, Ray accomplished this feat in the same season.