Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year: Chanelle Price

 Pennsylvania standout named nation's top high school performer

  -- In its third decade of honoring
the nation's best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in
partnership with RISE Magazine, today announced senior middle distance
runner Chanelle Price of Easton Area High School (Easton, Pa.) as its
2007-08 Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year. Price
becomes the first student-athlete from the state of Pennsylvania to win
Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year honors.

    The award, which recognizes not only athletic excellence, but also high
standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on
and off the track, distinguishes Price as the nation's best high school
girls track & field athlete. A national advisory board comprised of
sportswriters and sport-specific experts from around the country helped
select Price from the more than 439,000 high school girls track & field
athletes nationwide. Price is now a finalist for the prestigious Gatorade
Female High School Athlete of the Year award, to be presented at a special
afternoon ceremony prior to The ESPY Awards in July.

    No stranger to international competition, the senior half-miler placed
sixth in the 800-meter run against a world-class field at the Prefontaine
Classic earlier this month with a time of 2:01.61, clocking the second-best
time in scholastic history and eclipsing a milestone set by track legend
Mary Decker. Shattering the state record and winning her third consecutive
gold medal in the 800-meter with a time of 2:02.90 at the PIAA Class AAA
state meet in May, Price helped the Red Rovers to a seventh-place finish as
a team. A two-time 800-meter champion at the Nike Outdoor Nationals, Price
also won the 800-meter event at the 2008 National Scholastic Indoor
Championships and the 2007 Nike Indoor Nationals. Price is a five-time
individual national champion and has qualified for the upcoming 2008 U.S.
Olympic Trials.

    Price has maintained a 99.28 average in the classroom, placing her in
the top five percent of her class. Easton Area's Homecoming and Prom Queen,
Price donates her time as a Special Olympics volunteer and as a local
Vacation Bible School counselor. A member of the Future Business Leaders of
America and the Key Club, she also participates in multiple
community-service initiatives as an inductee of the National Honor Society
and Spanish National Honor Society.

    "Price has not lost a race at the prep level all year and keeps
improving," said Joy Kamani of the National Scholastic Sports Foundation,
prep track's most prestigious meet organizer. "A consistent performer all
season long, who competently runs distances from 400 to 5000 meters, she
set a new prep record in the 500 meters indoors this year. Earlier this
month, she competed against some of the world's best elite 800-meter
runners, including the great (2000 Sydney Games Olympic Champion) Maria
Mutola, and powered to a 6th-place finish and a new personal-best of
2:01.61, which puts her No. 2 on the all-time high school list behind (the
late, two-time Olympian) Kim Gallagher. She is in a class of her own."

    Price has signed a National Letter of Intent to run at the University

Source: Gstorade